Records of the Western Australian Museum 18 : 329-330 ( 1997 ). 
Short communication 
Ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) from varanid lizards in eastern Indonesia 
Dennis R. King 1 and James E. Keirans 2 
1 c/o Western Australian Museum, Francis St,, Perth Western Australia 6000, Australia 
2 U.S. National Tick Collection, P.O. Box 8056, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30460-8056, USA 
During a faunal survey in eastern Indonesia 
conducted by staff of the Western Australian 
Museum and the Museum Zoologicum Bogorense, 
a collection of 47 specimens of the lizard Varanus 
limorensis Gray 1831 was obtained on tire islands of 
Timor (10°U'S, 123°43'E), Roti (10°51'S, 123°06'E ), 
Semau (10°10'S, 123°28'E) and Savu (10°29'S, 
121°55'E) during May 1989 and September-October 
1990. This species weighs up to 300 grams and has 
a total length of up to 0.6 m. It occupies open 
savanna woodland at low altitudes (Sckmutz and 
Horn 1986) and feeds on invertebrates 
(orthopterans and spiders) and small vertebrates 
(King 1993). 
A smaller sample of 20 specimens of Varanus 
indicus (Daudin, 1802) was collected on the islands 
of Wokam (05°48'S, 134°15'E), Kai Besar (05°39'S, 
132°59’E), Banda Neira (04°33'S, 129°55'E) and 
Yamadena (07°45'S, 131°27'E) during April 1993 
and September-October 1992. This species weighs 
up to 2 kg and has a total length of up to 1.5 m. It 
inhabits areas near water and feeds on a variety of 
prey including crabs, other invertebrates, 
mammals, birds and fish (Dryden 1965; Losos and 
Greene 1988; King unpublished). 
Ticks were collected from 17 specimens (36%) of 
V. timorensis and were mostly found attached to 
the neck or tail. Ticks were found on most parts of 
the bodies of 12 (60%) of the V. indicus which were 
examined. Ticks were found on individuals 
• collected on all the islands listed above except Roti. 
All those from Varanus timorensis were Aponomma 
soembawensis Anastos 1956 while all those from 
Varanus indicus were Aponomma trimaculatum 
(Lucas 1878). 
Aponomma soembawensis has previously been 
recorded only from free-living Varanus salvator 
(Laurenti 1788) from the islands of Sumba (09°37'S, 
119°07’E) and Sumbawa (08°52’S, 116°50’E) and 
from a captive Python reticulatus in a zoological 
garden on Java (Kaufman 1972). The discovery of 
this species on V. timorensis from eastern Nusa 
Tenggara means that it has now been collected 
from a new host species and from three new 
localities. It only occurs in a very small area of 
eastern Indonesia, being distributed on natural 
populations of varanids on the islands of the Lesser 
Sundas. 
Aponomma trimaculatum has been collected from 
a number of host species including Varanus indicus, 
several other Varanus species and some species of 
snakes (Roberts 1970). It occurs over a wide 
distribution ranging from Sulawesi to the 
Philippines, New Britain and north-eastern 
Australia (Kaufman 1972; Santos Dias 1993). The 
record of Varanus timorensis (Kaufman 1972) as a 
host for this species is incorrect as the taxonomic 
status of the host has recently changed and it has 
been recognized as a separate species, Varanus 
similis Mertens 1958, which is restricted to 
northeastern Australia. All new localities reported 
for A. trimaculatum here are within the known 
distribution of the species. 
Other species of ticks collected from reptiles in 
eastern Indonesia also have either very restricted 
distributions and strong host specificity or 
widespread distributions and weak host specificity. 
The species Aponomma komodoense Oudemans is 
only found on Varanus komodoensis Ouwens, 1912 
on Komodo Island and Western Flores, and A. 
robinsoni Warburton is only found on Varanus 
komodoensis on Komodo Island. A. helvolum Koch is 
widespread in southeast Asia and infests a number 
of reptilian host species including several other 
species of Varanus (Auffenberg 1981, 1988). The 
known host specificity of Aponomma soembawensis 
is relatively strong and its distribution is limited 
while the host specificity of Aponomma 
trimaculatum is weak and it has a widespread 
distribution. 
The region in which these specimens were 
collected contains a high number of endemic 
species of mammals (Kitchener and Suyanto 1996), 
snakes (How and Kitchener in press) and frogs 
(Smith and Boeadi 1996), and is regarded as a 
centre of vertebrate speciation (Watts and 
Baverstock 1996) 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
We are grateful to Ken Aplin and Laurie Smith 
for allowing us access to specimens currently held 
in the reptile collection of the Western Australian 
Museum and to Ric How for helpful comments on 
an early draft of the manuscript. 
