the typical form, includes the subspecies sulcatus Neumann, 1908 

 of Africa, and both rossicus Yakiraoff and Vakimo:Pf, 1911, and 

 schulzei Olenev, 1929, of Russia. R. sulcatus . now considered 

 as a distinct species, is treated separately in the present study. 

 The Soviets (Pomerantzev 1950) consider the Asiatic forms also 

 as distinct species and add the following related species- R 

 turanicus Pomerantzev, 1940; R. pmiilio Schulze, 1922- R.'le"Boris 

 Pomerantzev, 1946; and R. schulzei Olenev. 1929. " — ^ 



Owing to the obvious difficulty of an independent evaluation 

 of Soviet species, Zumpt's (loc. cit.) terminology is utilized in 

 the present report. However, a survey of our own material from 

 the Near East and ecological observations leave us, at present, 

 uncertain over which of these two schools of thought is the cor- 

 rect one. 



More recently, Feldman-Muhsam C1952A) has designated as a very 

 closely related species, R. secundus , distingiushable from R. s 

 sanguineus only by the form of the female genital aperture and'of 

 the capitulam of larvae and nymphs. Although Feldman_Muhsam's 

 reared material shows these differences, Mr. Kaiser and I have 

 been unable to distinguish R. secundus after weeks of study of 

 a very considerable number of kennel ticks from tropical Africa, 

 North Africa, Arabia, and the Near East. Feldraai^-Muhsam (1953) 

 did not recognize R. secundus in American specimens she studied, 

 but claims to have found it among materials from Palestine, Turkey 

 Yugoslavia, France, Algeria, and French West Africa (and _ uru 

 published - Yemen and Egypt). Specimens identified as R. secundus 



by Feldman-Muhsam have been reported from Iraq alonp wilh "R — sT 



sanguineus (Hubbard 1955). '^ ~' "' 



It appears obvious that full understanding and agreement of 

 the status of subspecies and species related to R. sanguineus 

 awaits more refined laboratory and field techniques than have 

 yet been accorded this problem; possibly a more advanced con- 

 sideration of species criteria and of taxonomic tools than have 

 yet been applied to ticks; and freer exchange of ideas and inter- 

 course in presently antagonistic regions of the world. 



It will be noted in the section on IDENTIFICATION, below, 

 that an important diagnostic criterion for this tick is the 



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