Rhipicephalus capensis Koch, 1844a

Guglielmone, Alberto A., Nava, Santiago & Robbins, Richard G., 2023, Geographic distribution of the hard ticks (Acari: Ixodida: Ixodidae) of the world by countries and territories, Zootaxa 5251 (1), pp. 1-274 : 116

14. Rhipicephalus capensis Koch, 1844a .

Afrotropical: 1) South Africa ( Walker et al. 2000, Horak et al. 2018).

Walker et al. (2000) stated that many early records of Rhipicephalus capensis are uncertain, and that this species, Rhipicephalis follis and Rhipicephalus gertrudae have been confused with one another, arguing that it is sometimes impossible to morphologically distinguish Rhipicephalus capensis from Rhipicephalus gertrudae . However, Horak et al. (2018) expressed greater confidence in being able to correctly identify Rhipicephalus capensis .

The early confusion of Rhipicephalus capensis with related species led authors such as Theiler (1962) and Elbl & Anastos (1966c) to depict a broader geographic distribution for Rhipicephalus capensis , and Tandon (1991), among others, maintained this broad range for many years thereafter.