Amblyomma dissimile Koch, 1844

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 : 401

Amblyomma dissimile Koch, 1844

Syn.: A. bibroni Gervais, 1842 (a nomen nudum)

It is a three-host tick ( Hooker et al. 1912) reported in Antigua, Argentina, Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guaina, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Grenada, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, south of Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Santa Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela ( Onofrio et al. 2006). All the stages parasite different reptiles (snakes, lizards, iguanas, alligators and turtles) and amphibians (toads) ( Durden and Knapp 2005; Guglielmone et al. 2009). This tick attacks several species of cold-blooded vertebrates, showing no host preference; however, it is commonly found on Bufo marinus ( Bequaert 1932) . Toads and iguanas are also commonly infested ( Guimarães et al. 2001; Guglielmone et al. 2003; Dusbabek 2004). In Colombia, the species has been previously identified as A. diminutivum , equivalent of A. dissimile ( Santos Dias 1958) as well as by the name of Ixodes bibroni (Gervais, 1842) . However, Aragão and Fonseca (1961) preferred to label it as A. dissimile . In Brazil, it has been reported on Boa constrictor ( Hydrodynastes gigas ) ( Fontana 2003; Fiorini et al. 2014), on Blue-winged macaw ( Primolius maracana ), in areas that host free-living iguanas ( Iguana iguana ) ( Schumaker and Barros 1994; Scofield et al. 2011), Xenodon sp. ( Schumaker and Barros 1994), on mammals such as Hydrochoerus hidrochaeris , Rodentia ( Proechimys semispinosu ), cattle ( Bos taurus ) ( Jones et al. 1972) as well as goats in experimental models ( Jongejan 1992). In Colombia, this tick is commonly associated with reptiles and amphibians such as Iguana tuberculata , B. marinus and snakes from Santa Marta–Barranquilla collected from Boa imperator , Boa enydris cookey ; in Aracataca (Magdalena), it has been collected from B. marinus , Caiman sclerops and Constrictor constrictor ( Wramc 1998) , from Boa constrictor ( Carrascal et al. 2009) , and Bothrops asper ( Wramc 1998) . Five ticks were collected from Mulatos in the municipality of Turbo, Antioquia (8° 08' 12.5" N, 76° 33' 01.7" W), and Las Changas in the municipality of Necoclí (8° 32' 52.5" N, 76° 34' 23.7" W). One of these Mulatos was hosting a tick infected with Candidatus Rickettsia colombianensi ( Quintero et al. 2017b) , which is endemic in Valle del Cauca (Lopez 2017). Benavides et al. (2018) reported Amblyomma dissimile from B. asper in San Cipriano (Valle del Cauca, 76° 54' 041" W, 3° 50' 32.1" N, located at 149 m a.s.l.) in a wet tropical rain forest ( Galli 1927; Guglielmone et al. 2006) deposited in CIUNP (Accession Nos. 002-1, 002-2) ( Benavides-Montaño et al. 2018). Amblyomma dissimile removed from iguanas and rodents have been found positive to Rickettsia tamurae , which produces local skin inflammation, swelling, erythema, and heat with pain in humans ( Fournier et al. 2006; Miranda et al. 2012; Quintero et al. 2013; López and Parra 2017). Tick samples collected from Rhinella humboldti (Spix, 1824) and Rhinella marina (Linnaeus, 1758) in Santa Marta, Magdalena were positive to Rickettsia close related with Rickettsia sp. strain colombianensis and R. belli ( Cotes-Perdomo et al. 2017; Santodomingo et al. 2018) and new reports confirm its presence in Yopal, Casanare department ( Rivera-Paez et al. 2018a) associated with Ricketsia sp. strain colombianensis ( Rivera-Paez et al. 2018b) as well as microorganisms of Anaplasmataceae in ticks collected from reptiles ( Osorio et al. 2017), R. amblyommatis and Cand. R. colombianensis ( Quintero et al. 2017a).