The Lotti Forest specimen was taken at 4500 feet elevation. DISTRIBUTION IN THE SUDAN Upper Nile: Er Renk, a single female from a dog, H. H. King legit, 2 July 1909. King (1926) had referred to this specimen as See OTHER SUDAN NOTES under Ixodes rasus ?sub_ Ixodes rasus". species. DISTRIBUTION Ixodes nairobiensis is a seldom collected tick of East Africa that ranges as far south as Southern Rhodesia and Angola. EAST AFRICA: SUDAN (Hoogstraal 1954B). KENYA (Nuttall 1916. Bedford 1932B). UGANDA (Theiler, un published). SOUTHERN AFRICA: ANGOLA (CNHM Collection, from near Dundo, Lunda). SOUTHERN RHODESIA (Theiler, unpublished). HOSTS The strange assortment of hosts listed below indicates that there is much to learn about this tick and that some records may be due to misidentification. Females Domestic dogs (Nuttall 1916. Sudan record above). Warthog and multimammate mouse (Mastomys) (Bedford 1932B). Shrew, civet, and the following rodents: rat (Rattus rattus); creek rat, Pelomys fallax concolor; rock rats, Aethomys spp.; and groovetoothed rat, Otomys tropicalis pretoriae (Theiler, unpublished), and striped grassmouse, Lemniscomys s. striatus (Angola specimen mentioned above). Immature Stages Nymphs from multimammate mice (Equatoria Province records above), and Aethomys spp. (Theiler, unpublished). Larvae from Otomys tropicalis pretoriae (Theiler, unpublished). Unstated stage from kusu or grass rat, Arvicanthis abyssinicus (Theiler, unpublished). BIOLOGY The male is unknown. It either takes no blood or feeds for only short periods, and should be searched for especially in rodent nests. Immature stages have been collected from nestinhabiting rodents and probably also feed on insectivores as well. Females parasitize carnivores and the warthog. It is noteworthy that Roberts (1935) did not obtain this tick in his survey of rodent-nest inhabiting ticks in the Nairobi area. See HOSTS above. Unstudied. DISEASE RELATIONS IDENTIFICATION The female is readily identified. The anal grooves are horseshoe shaped. The scutum is 1.5 times as long as wide or even longer, widest just anterior of the midlength; it has a moderate number of mostly fine and a few moderate size puncta tions many of which give rise to a pale hair, distinct lateral ridges, and a depressed cervical area; its color is chestnut brown. Coxae are without internal spurs except on I, but each has a small basoexternal spur. The auriculae (i.e. lateral spurs) of the ventral basis capituli are long and retrograde. The immature stages have not yet been described and the male is unknown. This specimen, which cannot be assigned to any described sub species, is the only one of Ixodes rasus actually known from the Sudan. King (1926) believed that two other ticks that had engorged on him, one within the nostril the other behind the knee, while he was in the Yei River area of Equatoria Province might have been Ixodes rasus. OTHER SUDAN NOTES King (1926) listed Ixodes rasus from Er Renk and Kaka, Upper Nile Province. The Er Renk specimen, now in Sudan Government col lections, is a female of Ixodes nairobiensis. It was taken from a domestic dog on 2 July 1909, by H. H. King. Nuttall evidently saw the specimen some time before he described Ixodes nairobiensis (1916) because the label with this specimen reads Ixodes rasus. Nuttall's note: Agrees with cavipalpus, but scutum longer. Kaka specimen is a poorly preserved nymph that appears to be I. rasus but cannot definitely be assigned to this species. The DISTRIBUTION The actual range (and identity) of subspecies of Ixodes rasus is unknown (see REMARKS below). The species is especially numerous in many parts of West and Central Africa and locally common in East Africa. Material on which the few records of South African specimens are based should be restudied. |