Amblyomma geayi Neumann, 1899

Benavides-Montaño, Javier Antonio, Betancourt-Echeverri, Jesus Antonio, Valencia, Gustavo López & Mesa-Cobo, Nora Cristina, 2022, A review of hard ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) in Colombia: The risk of tick-borne diseases, Persian Journal of Acarology 11 (3), pp. 397-437 : 402

Amblyomma geayi Neumann, 1899 ( Fig. 1)

Present in Brazil, Colombia, Guiana, French Guiana, Panama, Peru, and Surinam. Reported from mammals of the Xenarthra order such as sloths ( Onofrio et al. 2006). It also has been reported in Caluromys (Opossum) ( Wramc 1998) . The original male ticks were collected by Fort Sherman in the Darién Gap, in the border between Panama and Colombia ( Osorno-Mesa 1942). It is found primarily on mammals and wild birds from tropical regions in South America such as sloths Bradypus variegatus ( Souza et al. 2016) , but also reptiles and amphibians. Amblyomma geayi is closely-related morphologically, genetically and ecologically to A. longirostre and A. parkeri and the immature stages are considered to feed on Passeriformes (Labruna et al. 2009; Ogrzewalska et al. 2010). The distinctive feature of this species is that the Coxa I has short, robust and rounded spikes; the internal spike is very small ( Barros-Battesti et al. 2006). In Colombia, there are three species of Sloths/Perezosos reported: one of three nails ( Bradypus variegatus ) and two of two nails ( Choloepus hoffmanni and Choloepus didactylus ) ( Wetzel 1985). The habitat of these species is determined by the availability of continuous vegetation cover and bioclimatic factors ( Moreno and Plese 2005). The range of Bradypus variegatus occupies almost the entire national territory; today it is zone-bound to some coastal regions, some low localities of the Inter-Andean Valleys and regions between the Orinoco and the Amazon ( Wetzel 1985; Phillips et al. 2006). Amblyomma geagy has also been reported in Colombia on C. didactylus (Lopez 2017) .