Rhipicephalus simus 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 : 238

74. Rhipicephalus simus Koch, 1844a .

An Afrotropical species whose larvae and nymphs are usually found on Rodentia : Muridae . All parasitic stages have been collected from Carnivora : Canidae , Felidae and Herpestidae ; adults and nymphs have been recovered from Primates : Cercopithecidae ; adults and larvae have been taken from Carnivora : Hyaenidae and Viverridae . Adults alone have been found on Mammalia (several orders), and rarely on Suliformes : Phalacrocoracidae ; nymphs and larvae have also been collected from Rodentia : Sciuridae , and Lagomorpha : Leporidae ; nymphs alone have been recorded from Soricomorpha : Soricidae ; and larvae alone from Galliformes : Numididae ; undetermined immature stages have been found on Macroscelidea : Macroscelididae (Guglielmone et al. 2014, Guglielmone & Robbins 2018). Rhipicephalus simus is a sporadic parasite of humans.

M: Koch (1844a)

F: Sousa Dias (1950), but see note below

N: Pegram et al. (1987a), but see note below

L: Pegram et al. (1987a), but see note below

Redescriptions

M: Koch (1847), Sousa Dias (1950), Pegram et al. (1987a), Walker et al. (2000), Walker, A.R. et al. (2003), Horak et al. (2018)

F: Pegram et al. (1987a), Walker et al. (2000), Walker, A.R. et al. (2003), Horak et al. (2018)

N: Walker et al. (2000)

L: Walker et al. (2000)

Note: Walker et al. (2000) state that Rhipicephalus simus has been correctly defined but its morphological characters are still sometimes insufficient to separate this tick from related species. There are descriptions of the larva and nymph of Rhipicephalus simus published prior to Walker et al. (2000), as in Howard (1908), Bedford (1934, larva only), Theiler (1943b, 1947) and Arthur (1975a, larva only), but it remains unclear whether these descriptions correspond to bona fide Rhipicephalus simus or to another species in the group. The same situation applies to several redescriptions of adults of Rhipicephalus simus , as in Hoogstraal (1956a), Morel and Vassiliades (1965) and earlier redescriptions, which are not included in the above lists. However, even with these caveats, the redescriptions of Rhipicephalus simus cited above remain clouded in uncertainty. See also Rhipicephalus muhsamae and Rhipicephalus gertrudae for the confusion of Rhipicephalus simus with related species.