Ixodes festai Tonelli Rondelli, 1926b

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 : 16

86. Ixodes festai Tonelli Rondelli, 1926b .

Palearctic: 1) France, 2) Italy, 3) Libya, 4) Morocco, 5) Tunisia ( Gilot & Pérez 1978, Cringoli et al. 2005, Pérez-Eid 2007, Kolonin 2009, Estrada-Peña et al. 2017).

Ixodes festai has been widely confused with Ixodes ventalloi because Arthur (1957c, 1958 a, 1963, 1965) described the former name using specimens of the latter ( Guglielmone et al. 2020). For this reason, Guglielmone et al. (2014) treated as doubtful records of Ixodes festai published prior to the study of this tick by Gilot & Pérez (1978). Estrada-Peña et al. (2017) also pointed to the confusion of Ixodes festai with Ixodes ventalloi as well as with Ixodes ricinus , and probably with Ixodes eldaricus and Ixodes inopinatus . Estrada-Peña et al. (2017) added that the poor condition of the holotype female of Ixodes festai has rendered morphological comparison of these species difficult.

Jaenson et al. (1994) listed Germany within the range of Ixodes festai , but Petney et al. (2012) cautioned that the German record was based on the studies of Arthur (1963, 1965), who confused this tick with Ixodes ventalloi (see above), and Germany is provisionally excluded from the range of Ixodes festai . Nowak-Chmura & Siuda (2012) and Hornok et al. (2016a) collected Ixodes festai from migrant birds in Poland and Hungary, respectively, but this species is not thought to be established in those countries. Guglielmone et al. (2014) stated that the nymphal record of Ixodes festai in Switzerland by Papadopoulos et al. (2001) requires confirmation, thus Switzerland is also excluded from this species’ range.