Dermacentor is a genus of ticks in the family Ixodidae, the hard ticks. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution, with native species on all continents except Australia. Most are found in North America.
Hosts of Dermacentor ticks include many large and small mammals, including horses, deer, cattle, lagomorphs, peccaries, porcupines, tapirs, desert bighorn sheep, and humans. The American dog tick (D. variabilis) is a member of the genus.
Dermacentor species are vectors of many pathogens, including Rickettsia rickettsii, which causes the disease Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Coxiella burnetii, which causes Q fever, Anaplasma marginale, which causes anaplasmosis in cattle, Francisella tularensis, which causes tularemia, Babesia caballi, which causes equine piroplasmosis, and the Flavivirus that causes Powassan encephalitis. Dermacentor ticks inject a neurotoxin that causes tick paralysis.
Species
As of 2019, about 41 species are placed in the genus: Dermacentor abaensis Teng, 1963 Dermacentor albipictus Packard, 1869 – winter tick Dermacentor andersoni Stiles, 1908 – Rocky Mountain wood tick Dermacentor asper Arthur, 1960 Dermacentor atrosignatus Neumann, 1906 Dermacentor auratus Supino, 1897 Dermacentor bellulus Schulze, 1933 Dermacentor circumguttatus Neumann, 1897 Dermacentor compactus Neumann, 1901 Dermacentor confragus Schulze, 1933 Dermacentor dispar Cooley, 1937 Dermacentor dissimilis Cooley, 1947 Dermacentor everestianus Hirst, 1926 Dermacentor filippovae Apanaskevich & Apanaskevich, 2015 Dermacentor halli McIntosh, 1931 Dermacentor hunteri Bishopp, 1912 Dermacentor imitans Warburton 1933 Dermacentor kamshadalus Neumann, 1908 Dermacentor laothaiensis Apanaskevich et al., 2019 Dermacentor latus Cooley, 1937 Dermacentor limbooliati Apanaskevich & Apanaskevich, 2015 Dermacentor marginatus Sulzer, 1776 Dermacentor montanus Filippova & Panova, 1974 Dermacentor nitens Neumann, 1897 Dermacentor niveus Neumann 1897 Dermacentor nuttalli Olenev, 1928 Dermacentor occidentalis Marx, 1892 - Pacific Coast tick Dermacentor panamensis Apanaskevich & Bermúdez, 2013 Dermacentor parumapertus Neumann, 1901 Dermacentor pasteuri Apanaskevich et al., 2020 Dermacentor pavlovskyi Olenev 1927 Dermacentor pomerantzevi Serdyukova, 1951 Dermacentor pseudocompactus Apanaskevich & Apanaskevich, 2016 Dermacentor raskemensis Pomerantsev, 1946 Dermacentor reticulatus Fabricius, 1794 – ornate cow tick, ornate dog tick, meadow tick, marsh tick Dermacentor rhinocerinus Denny, 1843 Dermacentor silvarum Olenev 1931 Dermacentor sinicus Schulze, 1932 Dermacentor steini Schulze, 1933 Dermacentor taiwanensis Sugimoto, 1935 Dermacentor tamokensis Apanaskevich & Apanaskevich, 2016 Dermacentor ushakovae Filippova & Panova 1987 Dermacentor variabilis Say, 1821 – wood tick, American dog tick