Rhipicephalus sanguineus s.l. detection in the Slovak Republic

Herein we report the first occurrence of Rhipicephalus sanguineus s.l. in the Slovak Republic. Sixty fed and unfed Rh. sanguineus s.l. ticks were collected from an apartment in the capital city of the Slovak Republic (Bratislava) and a family house in the town of Sereď in southwestern Slovakia. Based on molecular analyses of the cytochrome C oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) and 16S rRNA genes, all the ticks clustered in the Rhipicephalus sp. IIa mitochondrial “temperate” lineage, which contains geographically similar ticks from the mid- and western Mediterranean regions. Rhipicephalus sanguineus s.l. is not a part of the Slovak hard tick fauna.