Rhipicephalus tetracornus Kitaoka & Suzuki, 1983

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 : 130

80. Rhipicephalus tetracornus Kitaoka & Suzuki, 1983 .

Oriental: 1) Thailand ( Kitaoka & Suzuki 1983).

Rhipicephalus tetracornus was described from adults, nymphs and unconfirmed larvae. The adults and nymphs were subsequently lost, but the holotype (a nymph deposited in the National Science Museum, Tokyo) is available. Rhipicephalus tetracornus was not listed as valid by Keirans (1992), Horak et al. (2002) and Kolonin (2009), while Walker et al (2000) treated Rhipicephalus tetracornus as a species incertae sedis. By contrast, Rhipicephalus tetracornus was recognized as valid by Camicas et al. (1998), as well as Guglielmone et al. (2009, 2010 b, 2014, 2020) and Guglielmone & Nava (2014). Guglielmone et al. (2009) discussed the peculiar taxonomic situation of Rhipicephalus tetracornus , concluding that its description by Kitaoka and Suzuki (1983) is sound, a holotype is available for further analysis, and no studies have determined that this tick is a synonym of another species of Rhipicephalus . Therefore, no reasons yet exist to declare Rhipicephalus tetracornus invalid.