Ixodes auritulus Neumann, 1904

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 : 9

23. Ixodes auritulus Neumann, 1904 .

Australasian: 1) Australia, 2) New Zealand; Nearctic: 1) Canada, 2) USA; Neotropical: 1) Argentina, 2) Brazil, 3) Chile, 4) Colombia, 5) Costa Rica, 6) Ecuador, 7) Guatemala, 8) Panama, 9) Peru, 10) Uruguay, 11) Venezuela; remote islands: 1) Pacific Ocean Islands (south) of Chatham and Antipodes ( Arthur 1960b, Wilson 1967 a, Roberts 1970, Jones et al. 1972, Keirans & Clifford 1978, González et al. 2005, Heath et al. 2011, Lindquist et al. 2016, Cicuttin et al. 2017, Carvalho et al. 2020, Guglielmone et al. 2020, 2021).

Records of Ixodes auritulus from South Pacific islands are based on Heath et al. (2011) and are named Ixodes auritulus zealandicus , most probably a species in itself (see note below).

Camicas et al. (1998, under the name Scaphixodes auritulus ) and Guglielmone et al. (2014) listed this species as found in the Afrotropical Region, but records from that region have not been confirmed and the Afrotropics are excluded from the range of Ixodes auritulus ( Guglielmone et al. 2020, 2021). There are also controversial records of Ixodes auritulus from the Antarctic Peninsula and South Atlantic and Indian Ocean islands that are not included in the range of this tick. Kolonin (2009) and Castrezana (2010) included Papua New Guinea and Mexico, respectively, within the range of Ixodes auritulus ; however, the presence of this tick in those countries has not been confirmed, and Mexico and Papua New Guinea are provisionally excluded from its range.

Arthur (1960b), González-Acuña et al. (2005), Guglielmone et al. (2020, 2021) and others treated Ixodes auritulus as a name for a species complex, an opinion also endorsed here.

Note: the literature review for this monograph was completed on March 31, 2022. Subsequently, Apanaskevich et al. (Zootaxa, 5173, 1-73; August 5, 2022) confirmed that the name Ixodes auritulus has historically been applied to a species complex containing at least nine taxa distributed in the Australasian, Nearctic and Neotropical Zoogeographic Regions. However , these taxa are not discussed here .