Amblyomma arcanum Karsch, 1879b

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 : 39-40

6. Amblyomma arcanum Karsch, 1879b .

Afrotropical: 1) Angola, 2) Cameroon, 3) Central African Republic, 4) Congo, 5) Democratic Republic of the Congo, 6) Equatorial Guinea, 7) Gabon, 8) Ghana, 9) Ivory Coast, 10) S ã o Tomé and Príncipe ( Santos Dias 1993b, Morel 2003, Pourrut et al. 2011, Uilenberg et al. 2013).

Most records of Amblyomma arcanum have been published under the name Aponomma arcanum , a name considered by Theiler (1945), Kaufman (1972), Kolonin (2009) and others to be a synonym of Amblyomma exornatum , another name generally published as Aponomma exornatum . Santos Dias (1993b), Camicas et al. (1998) and Horak et al. (2002) defended the validity of Amblyomma arcanum , and Guglielmone et al. (2014, 2017, 2020) treat this name as provisionally valid, pending type comparison with the morphologically related species Amblyomma exornatum and Amblyomma flavomaculatum . Here Amblyomma arcanum is also treated as provisionally valid, as is its range.

The geographic distribution of this tick is chiefly based on Santos Dias (1993b) supported by the opinion of Morel & Mouchet (1965), who believed that Amblyomma arcanum is a tick chiefly found in western Africa.