Hyalomma excavatum Koch, 1844a

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 : 105

8. Hyalomma excavatum Koch, 1844a .

Afrotropical: 1) Djibouti, 2) Eritrea, 3) Ethiopia, 4) Oman, 5) Saudi Arabia (south), 6) Somalia, 7) Sudan, 8) United Arab Emirates, 9) Yemen; Palearctic: 1) Afghanistan, 2) Albania, 3) Algeria, 4) Cyprus, 5) Egypt, 6) Greece, 7) Iran, 8) Iraq, 9) Israel, 10) Italy, 11) Jordan, 12) Kazakhstan, 13) Kuwait, 14) Lebanon, 15) Libya, 16) Mauritania (north), 17) Morocco, 18) Saudi Arabia (north), 19) Syria, 20) Tajikistan, 21) Tunisia, 22) Turkey, 23) Turkmenistan 24) Uzbekistan, 25) Western Sahara ( Hoogstraal & Kaiser 1959a, K ö hler et al. 1967, Hoogstraal 1980, Hoogstraal et al. 1981, Saliba et al. 1990, Papadopoulos et al. 1996, Wassef et al. 1997, Williams et al. 2000, Apanaskevich 2003b, Apanaskevich & Horak 2005, Cringoli et al. 2005, Bursali et al. 2012, Kleinerman et al. 2013, Shubber et al. 2014, Estrada-Peña et al. 2017, Alanazi et al. 2019, Abdally et al. 2021, Okely et al. 2021, Perveen et al. 2021).

Hyalomma anatolicum and Hyalomma excavatum have been confused with each other for decades, generally under the names Hyalomma anatolicum anatolicum and Hyalomma anatolicum excavatum , respectively. This situation was clarified through the studies of Apanaskevich (2003b), Apanaskevich & Horak (2005) and Apanaskevich & Filippova (2007).

The presence of Hyalomma excavatum in Eritrea is based on Tonelli Rondelli (1932), who described the Eritrean Hyalomma tunesianicum ganorai , a synonym of Hyalomma excavatum ( Camicas et al. 1998) . Hoogstraal (1980) reported a tentative diagnosis of Hyalomma excavatum from Oman, and Williams et al. (2000) stated that Australian sheep free from ectoparasites become infested with Hyalomma excavatum in Oman, a country provisionally included within the range of this tick. Estrada-Peña et al. (2017) did not include Italy within the range of this tick, but Cringoli et al. (2005) listed Hyalomma excavatum as an Italian species. Hosseini-Chegeni et al. (2019) mentioned the presence of Hyalomma excavatum in Iran, but these authors do not believe that this name represents a valid species. Perfilyeva et al. (2020) did not include Kazakhstan in their list of ticks from that country. Nevertheless, Iran and Kazakhstan are here included within the range of Hyalomma excavatum .

Whether Hyalomma excavatum occurs in Pakistan is uncertain. As an example, Karim et al. (2017) identified thousands of ticks collected from livestock all over Pakistan and found no Hyalomma excavatum , but Kasi et al. (2020) identified hundreds of tick specimens, also from livestock, in the Balochistan area of Pakistan (Palearctic), concluding that the most abundant species there was Hyalomma excavatum . Because of such contradictory results, Pakistan is provisionally excluded from the range of Hyalomma excavatum , although we expect that this matter will be resolved soon. The presence of this tick in Bulgaria and Spain, reported by Nader et al. (2018) and Sánchez-Seco et al. (2021), respectively, needs confirmation. Sylla et al. (2008) recorded Hyalomma excavatum from Senegal and southern Mauritania, but the endemicity of this species in those territories is uncertain.