Haemaphysalis leachi ( Audouin, 1826 )

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 : 91

90. Haemaphysalis leachi ( Audouin, 1826) .

Afrotropical: 1) Angola, 2) Burundi, 3) Cameroon, 4) Central African Republic, 5) Democratic Republic of the Congo, 6) Ethiopia, 7) Gabon, 8) Guinea, 9) Kenya, 10) Liberia, 11) Mali (south), 12) Nigeria, 13) Senegal, 14) South Sudan, 15) Tanzania, 16) Uganda, 17) Zambia, 18) Zimbabwe; Palearctic: 1) Egypt (Apanaskevich et al. 2007, Pourrout et al. 2011, Uilenberg et al. 2013, Sylla et al. 2018, Kamani et al. 2019, Kartashov et al. 2021, Shekede et al. 2021, Sili et al. 2021).

Haemaphysalis leachi is a species that is difficult to identify using morphological characters, and it has been confused with several related species since its description in 1826 (Apanaskevich et al. 2007, Horak et al. 2018, Guglielmone et al. 2020).

The geographic distribution of Haemaphysalis leachi is mostly based on Apanaskevich et al. (2007), who studied this species and Haemaphysalis elliptica , a tick long confused with Haemaphysalis leachi . Apanaskevich et al. (2007) found that Haemaphysalis leachi is not established in South Africa, but Kassiri & Nasirian (2021) and Nasirian & Zahirnia (2021) have continued to list Haemaphysalis leachi as a South African tick. Horak et al. (2018) classified ticks collected in Botswana and Namibia as Haemaphysalis leachi / elliptica , and both of these countries are provisionally excluded from the range of Haemaphysalis leachi . Edouard et al. (2022) listed this tick as present in the Ivory Coast but based on a reference published prior to the study of Apanaskevich et al. (2007), and that country is provisionally excluded from the range of Haemaphysalis leachi .