Dermacentor niveus Neumann, 1897

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 : 73

24. Dermacentor niveus Neumann, 1897 .

Palearctic: 1) Afghanistan, 2) China (north), 3) Iran, 4) Kazakhstan, 5) Kyrgyzstan, 6) Mongolia, 7) Russia, 8) Tajikistan, 9) Turkey, 10) Turkmenistan, 11) Uzbekistan (Hoogstraal 1973 a, Filippova 1997, Morel 2003, Filippova & Plaskina 2005, Chen et al. 2010, Fedorova 2012, Hosseini-Chegeni et al. 2019, Perfilyeva et al. 2020, Tsapko 2020).

Dermacentor niveus is a member of the Dermacentor marginatus species complex, and its validity has been the subject of controversy. Pomerantzev (1950) treated Dermacentor niveus as a synonym of Dermacentor daghestanicus , a view followed by other authors. However, Kolonin (2009) considered some redescriptions of Dermacentor niveus synonyms of Dermacentor daghestanicus , and regarded the original description of Dermacentor niveus as a synonym of Dermacentor marginatus , an opinion that Estrada-Peña et al. (2017) and several other authors have accepted. According to Camicas et al. (1998), Tekin et al. (2012) and some other workers, both Dermacentor daghestanicus and Dermacentor niveus are valid, while Keirans (1992) and Horak et al. (2002) listed Dermacentor niveus but not Dermacentor daghestanicus as a valid species. Filippova (1997) and Tsapko (2020) stated that Dermacentor daghestanicus is a synonym of Dermacentor niveus , a position accepted by Guglielmone & Nava (2014), Guglielmone et al. (2014, 2020) and here, although only provisionally. This rather chaotic situation extends to all species in the Dermacentor marginatus complex and largely exists because there is no comparative type material for Dermacentor marginatus . Until an acceptable neotype for Dermacentor marginatus is selected, and the tick population at the type locality is morphologically and molecularly defined, the validity of Dermacentor niveus and its congeners will remain a matter of speculation.

Concerns about the validity of Dermacentor niveus have complicated efforts to determine this species’ geographic distribution. Thus, in Iran Moshaverinia et al. (2009) supported the conspecificity of Dermacentor niveus with Dermacentor marginatus , while Hosseini-Chegeni et al. (2019) listed both species as valid but recommended further studies to determine the status of Dermacentor niveus . Kiefer et al. (2010) listed Dermacentor daghestanicus , with Dermacentor niveus as its synonym, as present in Mongolia along with Dermacentor marginatus , but Černý, J. et al. (2019), working in the same country, considered Dermacentor niveus a synonym of Dermacentor marginatus . In China, Zhao et al. (2021) used the name Dermacentor daghestanicus instead of Dermacentor niveus , while Chen et al. (2010) and Zhang, Y.K. et al. (2019) treated both Dermacentor niveus and Dermacentor marginatus as separate entities, but Zhang, G. et al. (2019) regarded Dermacentor niveus as a synonym of Dermacentor marginatus . A similar situation is seen in Kazakhstan, where Perfilyeva et al. (2020) treated Dermacentor niveus as a valid species, but Abdiyeva et al. (2020) listed that name as a synonym of Dermacentor marginatus . We have elected to provisionally include China (north), Iran, Kazakhstan and Mongolia within the range of Dermacentor niveus .