Amblyomma maculatum Koch, 1844a

Guglielmone, Alberto A., Petney, Trevor N. & Robbins, Richard G., 2020, Ixodidae (Acari: Ixodoidea): descriptions and redescriptions of all known species from 1758 to December 31, 2019, Zootaxa 4871 (1), pp. 1-322 : 105-106

74. Amblyomma maculatum Koch, 1844a .

A Nearctic and Neotropical species, all of whose parasitic stages are usually found on Mammalia (several orders); immature stages have been collected from Aves (several orders), but larvae and nymphs are most frequently recovered from Galliformes : Odontophoridae , and Passeriformes (several families); adult ticks have rarely been recorded from Squamata : Teiidae . Amblyomma maculatum is a frequent parasite of humans.

M: Koch (1844a)

F: Hunter and Hooker (1907)

N: Hooker et al. (1912)

L: Hooker et al. (1912)

Redescriptions

M: Koch (1847), Hunter and Hooker (1907), Banks (1908), Hooker et al. (1912), Cooley and Kohls (1944), Kohls (1956b), Estrada-Peña et al. (2005), Guzmán-Cornejo et al. (2011), Lindquist et al. (2016), Lado et al. (2018); see note below

F: Banks (1908), Hooker et al. (1912), Cooley and Kohls (1944), Kohls (1956b), Sonenshine (1979), Estrada-Peña et al. (2005), Guzmán-Cornejo et al. (2011), Lindquist et al. (2016), Lado et al. (2018); see note below

N: Cooley and Kohls (1944), Sonenshine (1979), Keirans and Durden (1998), Estrada-Peña et al. (2005), Lindquist et al. (2016), Dubie et al. (2017); see note below

L: Cooley and Kohls (1944), Clifford et al. (1961), Sonenshine (1979), Estrada-Peña et al. (2005), Coley (2015), Lindquist et al. (2016), Dubie et al. (2017); see note below

Note: the morphological diagnosis of Amblyomma maculatum can sometimes be very difficult. Neumann (1899) supposedly described the nymph of Amblyomma maculatum and redescribed the male and female, but it is uncertain whether he was referring to this species, Amblyomma tigrinum or Amblyomma triste . Estrada-Peña et al. (2005) state that the larvae of Amblyomma maculatum , Amblyomma tigrinum and Amblyomma triste cannot be correctly identified using morphological characters. The descriptions of the male and female of Amblyomma maculatum in Boero (1957) and Floch and Abonnenc (1940) refer, in fact, to Amblyomma tigrinum , and these as well as several other redescriptions of Amblyomma maculatum adults are not included in the above lists. The figures of the male and female in Walker and Olwage (1987) are of importance for relevant morphological features, such as the presence of tubercles along the posterior body margin of the female of Amblyomma maculatum ( Guglielmone et al. 2003) . Mendoza-Uribe and Chávez-Chorocco (2004) clearly explain the difficulties involved in differentiating Amblyomma maculatum from Amblyomma triste . Nava et al. (2017) state that there is a chance that Amblyomma maculatum and Amblyomma triste are conspecific; this hypothesis is further supported by the molecular and morphological study of Lado et al. (2018), but conclusive evidence is still needed, and both species are treated here as provisionally valid. Lado et al. (2018) described four morphotypes of maculatum-triste, with morphotype II being Amblyomma maculatum sensu stricto.