A review of hard ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) in Colombia: The risk of tick-borne diseases Author Benavides-Montaño, Javier Antonio Author Betancourt-Echeverri, Jesus Antonio . School of Microbiology and Bioanalysis, Faculty of Health, Industrial Universidad de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia; E-mail: jesantbet @ yahoo. com jesantbet@yahoo.com Author Valencia, Gustavo López . Asesor Científico Instituto Colombiano de Medicina Tropical, ICMT, Universidad CES, Medellín, Colombia; E-mail: glopez @ ces. edu. co glopez@ces.edu.co Author Mesa-Cobo, Nora Cristina . Acarology Research group, Immunology and infectious disease group, Agriculture Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Palmira, Palmira, Colombia; E-mail: ncmesac @ unal. edu. co ncmesac@unal.edu.co text Persian Journal of Acarology 2022 2022-07-15 11 3 397 437 journal article 2251-8169 Amblyomma varium Koch, 1844 It is reported from Argentina , Brazil , Chile , Colombia , Costa Rica , French Guiana , Guatemala , Nicaragua , Panama , Peru , and Venezuela ; ( Jones et al . 1972 ; Guglielmone et al . 2003 ; BarrosBattesti et al . 2006; Onofrio et al . 2006 ). Xenarthra (anteater), armadillos and sloths are the main hosts. This tick has been reported in Colombia on sloths, Bradypus griseus (Lopez 2017) , in Bradypus tridactylus in Condoto – Choco , and in Panama , where it is commonly found parasitizing Choloepus hoffmanni ( Osorno-Mesa 1942 ; Wramc 1998 ; Voltzit 2007 ). Recently, a new update has mentioned its presence on C. l. familiaris from Ibague, Tolima ( Rivera-Paez et al . 2018a ). Except for these few reports in Colombia , nothing is known about the biology and ecology of this tick species, hence the need for research that describes it thoroughly; it is likely that the specimens reported by Rivera on a pet dog were an accidental parasitism since this species feeds mostly on sloths ( Marques et al . 2002 ).