| Margaropus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Dorsal view of Margaropus female, with inset of male posterior below | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Ixodida |
| Family: | Ixodidae |
| Genus: | Margaropus Ferdinand Karsch, 1879 |
| Type species | |
| Margaropus winthemi | |
Margaropus is a genus of ticks, characterized as inornate, having eyes, lacking festoons, and with the legs of the male increasing in size from pair I to IV with the segments enlarged, giving them a beaded appearance, from which the genus name was taken, margaritopus signifying beady-legged; [2] the species name memorialized naturalist and entomologist Wilhelm von Winthem.
The genus currently includes three species: [3]
- Margaropus reidi , Hoogstraal, 1956, the Sudanese beady-legged tick [4]
- Margaropus wileyi , Walker & Laurence, 1973, the East African giraffe tick [5]
- Margaropus winthemi , Karsch, 1879, the South African winter horse tick or beady-legged tick [6]
In their native range, Margaropus species ticks parasitize larger land animals, including the three largest southern African wild ruminants, giraffes, Giraffa camelopardalis ; African buffaloes, Syncerus caffer ; and common eland, Taurotragus oryx . [7]
