FAMILY IXODIDAE 



INTRCDUCTION 



All tick genera, save those in the family Argasidae and 

 Nuttalliella , in the family Nuttalliellidae* , fall into the 

 family Ixodidae and are referred to as *hard ticks'" or '"ixodids'". 

 The use of the term ixodid is not confined to the genus Ixodes » 

 In Sudani Arabic, hard ticks are called '•'gurad'" ( ^l^ )• 



All ixodid genera that normally inhabit Africa also occiir 

 in the Sudan with the exception of Rhipicentor ** . This gen\is is 

 represented by R, gladiger (Neumann, 1908J (» bicornis Nuttall 

 and Warburton, 1908 j in neighboring Belgian Congo (Bequaert 1931) 

 and further south in Africa. R. nuttalli Cooper and Robinson, 

 I9O8, occurs on various animals in South Africa and in Southwest 

 Africa, 



*The family Nuttalliellidae (Schulze 1935) contains only a single, 

 exceedingly rare species, Nuttalliella namaqua Bedford, 193l(Ay, 

 described from Little Naraaqualand, Southwest Africa. This family 

 appears to be a '"missing link!". A scutal outline is present but 

 not structurally differentiated from the Ifeatheiy, papillated inte- 

 gument. Though the mouthparts are anterior as in Ixodidae, the 

 palpal segments are movable as in Argasidae, but an inner groove 

 on the second segment is suggestive of the reduction in Ixodidae, 

 in which the terminal segment is essentially merely a small ap- 

 pendage of the penultimate segment. The biology of this strange 

 species is unknown. 



* *Rhipicephalus (Pterygodes ) fvilvus Neumann, 1913, a remarkable 

 aberrant parasite of Northwest Africa, is frequently treated as 

 a monotypic genus and sometimes as a subgenus of Rhipicephalus . 

 See Netimann (1913) for description of male and Colas-Belcour 

 (1932) for description of female, nymph, larva, hosts, biology, 

 £ind disease relations. 



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