Rhipicephalus

Rhipicephalus
Rhipicephalus sanguineus
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Ixodida
Family: Ixodidae
Genus: Rhipicephalus
Koch, 1844[1]
Type species
Ixodes sanguineus
Latreille, 1806
Species

About 74–75 species, see text.

Rhipicephalus is a genus of ticks in the family Ixodidae, the hard ticks, consisting of about 74 or 75 species.[2][3] Most are native to tropical Africa.[2]

Rhipicephalus ticks are commonly called 'the brown tick' as they are mostly brown in colour.[4] Most adult ticks in this genus do not have colour patterns on their scutum (inornate).[4] This makes the species difficult to distinguish from one another because most are quite similar, but individuals of one particular species can be quite variable.[3][4] Ticks have traditionally been identified by examination of distinctive morphological features. Most of the characteristics used to identify species pertain to male specimens.[3] The immature and female specimens are sometimes simply impossible to identify due to the lack of differential morphological features.[3][4][5]

Many Rhipicephalus spp. are of economic, medical, and veterinary importance because of their blood feeding lifestyle. They are possible vectors of many pathogens in humans and animals. They can transmit pathogens that cause animal and human diseases, such as East Coast fever, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, rickettsiosis,[2] Boutonneuse fever, Lyme disease, Q fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever.[6] In addition to the infectious agents spread by ticks, tick bites can lead to allergic and toxic reactions.[7][8] A toxic reaction occur when they inject a neurotoxin with their bite that leads to tick-caused paralysis.[2][8]

Boophilus was once considered a separate genus, but studies in the early 2000s resulted in Boophilus being made a subgenus of Rhipicephalus.[9] Although Boophilus has been included in the Rhipicephalus genus, their morphology is different from the typical Rhipicephalus species.[5]

Species familiar in the domestic environment include the brown dog tick (R. sanguineus).

  1. ^ Koch, C. L. (1844). "Systematische Übersicht über die Ordnung der Zecken". Archiv für Naturgeschichte. 10 (1): 238–239.
  2. ^ a b c d Olwoch, J. M., et al. (2007). Climate change and the genus Rhipicephalus (Acari: Ixodidae) in Africa. Onderstepoort J Vet Res 74(1), 45-72.
  3. ^ a b c d Beati, L. and J. E. Keirans. (2001). Analysis of the systematic relationships among ticks of the genera Rhipicephalus and Boophilus (Acari: Ixodidae) based on mitochondrial 12S ribosomal DNA gene sequences and morphological characters. The Journal of Parasitology 87(1), 32.
  4. ^ a b c d Walker, J.B., Keirans, J.E. & Horak, I.G. (2000). The Genus Rhipicephalus (Acari, Ixodidae): A Guide to the Brown Ticks of the World. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-48008-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ a b The Ixodid Ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) of Southern Africa. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-70642-9.
  6. ^ Rhipicephalus. Tick Identification Key. University of Lincoln.
  7. ^ Ahmed, Jabbar; Alp, Hatice; Aksin, Muhammed; Seitzer, Ulrike (2007). "Current status of ticks in Asia". Parasitology Research. 101 (S2): 159–162. doi:10.1007/s00436-007-0696-3. ISSN 0932-0113.
  8. ^ a b Daniel E. Sonenshine, R. Michael Roe (2014). Overview: Ticks, People, and Animals in Biology of ticks, Volume 1 (Second ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-937927-9. OCLC 862106136.
  9. ^ Murrell, Anna; Barker, Stephen C. (2003). "Synonymy of Boophilus Curtice, 1891 with Rhipicephalus Koch, 1844 (Acari: Ixodidae)". Systematic Parasitology. 56 (3): 169–172. doi:10.1023/B:SYPA.0000003802.36517.a0. PMID 14707501. S2CID 995415.