Morphological and Molecular Identification of Brown Dog Ticks Rhipicephalus linnaei “Tropical Lineage” Isolated from Pet Dogs in Some Small Animal Hospitals around Hanoi, Vietnam

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Articles

Authors

1 Department of Veterinary Parasitology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Vietnam National University of Agriculture

2 Department of Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Vietnam National University of Agriculture

3 Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Vietnam National University of Agriculture

Abstract

Background: The brown dog ticks, Rhipicephalus sanguineus complex, are distributed worldwide. According to the molecular data and geographical distribution, R. sanguineus complex divided into two clades called R. sanguineus sensu lato “tropical lineage” and R. sanguineus sensu stricto “temperate lineage”. However, the recent data of morphological and molecular identification re-established a new neotype as R. linnaei that shares similar morphological characteristics to R. sanguineus, leading to be misidentified.

Objectives: This study aims to identify and confirm that Rhipicephalus dog tick species are prevalent in Vietnam.

Methods: Adult ticks were collected from pet dogs in small animal hospitals around Hanoi, Vietnam. They were then identified based on morphological characteristics and molecular analysis such as PCR and sequencing techniques.

Results: the species of Rhipicephalus identified in this study was R. linnaei with typically morphological characteristics including narrowly elongated comma shape spiracula in males and broadly U-shape genital pore atrium in females. The phylogenetic analysis indicated that this isolate was closely related to R. linnaei from Angola; and the genetic divergences between this isolate in this study with R. linnaei Angola strain were 0.24%, 0.5%, and 0.0% for cox1, 12S rDNA and 16S rDNA genes, respectively.

Conclusions: This is the first report for the prevalence of R. linnaei in dogs in Vietnam and genetic variation of this species within the referenced R. sanguineus complex in Vietnam, providing essential data for tick taxonomy.

Keywords

Iranian Journal of Veterinary Medicine

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 26 April 2025

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