Geographic distribution of the hard ticks (Acari: Ixodida: Ixodidae) of the world by countries and territories Author Guglielmone, Alberto A. 0000-0001-5430-2889 guglielmone.alberto@inta.gob.ar Author Nava, Santiago 0000-0001-7791-4239 nava.santiago@inta.gob.ar Author Robbins, Richard G. 0000-0003-2443-5271 robbinsrg@si.edu text Zootaxa 2023 2023-03-07 5251 1 1 274 http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5251.1.1 journal article 235222 10.11646/zootaxa.5251.1.1 43227427-a867-4744-9e4c-2b2302524890 1175-5326 7704190 3326BF76-A2FB-4244-BA4C-D0AF81F55637 78. Haemaphysalis kitaokai Hoogstraal, 1969 . Oriental: 1) China (south), 2) Taiwan ; Palearctic: 1) China (north), 2) Japan (except the Ryukyu Islands) ( Yamaguti et al. 1971 , Robbins 2005 , Chen et al. 2010 , Takano et al. 2014 , Li et al. 2020 ). Camicas et al. (1998) listed Haemaphysalis kitaokai as a Palearctic species, but there are several records of this tick from the Oriental Zoogeographic Region . Haemaphysalis kitaokai was originally classified as Haemaphysalis ambigua by Neumann (1906) , and there are additional records of this tick published under the names Haemaphysalis ambigua , Haemaphysalis inermis and Haemaphysalis inermis aponommoides , as explained in Yamaguti et al. (1971) . Molecular analyses of populations of Haemaphysalis kitaokai by Li et al. (2018) indicate that more than one species may exist under this name.