Dermacentor taiwanensis Sugimoto, 1935

Petney, Trevor N., Boulanger, Nathalie, Saijuntha, Weerachai, Chitimia-Dobler, Lidia, Pfeffer, Martin, Eamudomkarn, Chatanun, Andrews, Ross H., Ahamad, Mariana, Putthasorn, Noppadon, Muders, Senta V., Petney, David A. & Robbins, Richard G., 2019, Ticks (Argasidae, Ixodidae) and tick-borne diseases of continental Southeast Asia, Zootaxa 4558 (1), pp. 1-89 : 20-21

Dermacentor taiwanensis Sugimoto, 1935

This species has been recorded from East and Southeast Asian evergreen forests (Guglielmone et al. 2014). It is a parasite of wild pigs (Sus scrofa). Immatures are frequently found on small to medium-sized mammals, especially rodents, with one record from a bird ( Kitaoka and Suzuki 1981; Hoogstraal et al. 1986). Dermacentor taiwanensis has rarely been reported from humans (Yano et al. 1993; de la Fuente et al. 2008) and these specimens may have been confused with D. bellulus . Dermacentor taiwanensis has been recorded from Vietnam ( Kolonin 1992), but records from peninsular Malaysia ( Mariana et al. 2005, 2008a) are considered doubtful due to similarities with the newly redescribed D. bellulus and the newly described D. tamokensis ( Apanaskevich and Apanaskevich 2015b, c, 2016).

Wassef and Hoogstraal (1986a) described the male and female, and Kitaoka and Suzuki (1981) the immature stages. However, the descriptions of the larva and nymph of D. taiwanensis in Kitaoka & Suzuki (1981) are considered to be the first descriptions of the larva and nymph of D. bellulus according to Apanaskevich & Apanaskevich (2015c). Apanaskevich and Apanaskevich (2015b) redescribed the male and female.