Abstract:
The cattle tick Rhipicephalus microplus is currently invading the West African region, and little
information is available on the spread of this exotic tick in this region. We set out a country-wide
field survey to determine its current distribution in Benin. Ticks were collected on cattle from 106
farms selected by random sampling covering all regions of the country. R. annulatus was found in
70 % of all farms, R. decoloratus was found in 42 %, R. geigyi was found on 58 %, and R.
microplus was found on 49 % of all farms. There is a clear geographic separation between the
indigenous R. species and R. microplus. R. annulatus occurs mainly in the northern departments,
but it was also observed in smaller amounts in locations in the south. The presence of R.
decoloratus is limited to the northern region, and in most locations, this tick makes up a small
proportion of the collected ticks. The tick R. geigyi tends to be dominant, but occurs only in the
four northern departments. The observations concerning R. microplus are entirely different, this
species occurs in the southern and central region. The results of this survey confirm the invasive
character and displacement properties of R. microplus, since in less than a decade it has colonized
more than half of the country and has displaced indigenous ticks of the same genus in a large
number of the sampled locations.
