177. Ixodes ovatus Neumann, 1899 .

Oriental: 1) China (south), 2) India, 3) Laos, 4) Myanmar, 5) Nepal (south and central), 6) Taiwan, 7) Thailand, 8) Vietnam; Palearctic: 1) China (north), 2) Japan (except the Ryukyu Islands), 3) Nepal (north and central) (Hoogstraal et al. 1973 a, Tanskul et al. 1983, Robbins 2005, Kolonin 2009, Chen et al. 2010, Takano et al. 2014, Vongphayloth et al. 2016, Pun et al. 2018, Petney et al. 2019, Zhao et al. 2021).

Several records of Ixodes ovatus have been published under the name Ixodes japonensis, a tick described by Neumann (1904) but treated as a synonym of Ixodes ovatus in Camicas et al. (1998), being the most commonly cited of the several synonyms of Ixodes ovatus listed in Guglielmone & Nava (2014). Additionally, the first description of the male of Ixodes ovatus is in Nuttall (1916) under the name Ixodes japonensis because the male of Ixodes ovatus in Neumann (1899) does not belong to this species, as discussed in Neumann (1911a), Morel (1963c) and others.

Li et al. (2018) listed a Japanese sequence of Ixodes ovatus as having been obtained from a USA specimen.

Hoogstraal et al. (1973a) stated that morphological differences among populations of Ixodes ovatus indicate that more than one species may exist under this name, and Li et al. (2018) and Regilme et al. (2021) provided molecular data supporting the view of Hoogstraal et al. (1973a).

Kang et al. (2022) found a specimen of Ixodes ovatus in South Korea, but this record is considered insufficient to support the presence of this tick there.