Rhipicephalus microplus
species of arachnid
The Asian blue tick (Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus, Rhipicephalus microplus, or Boophilus microplus) is an economically important tick that parasitises a variety of livestock and wild mammal species, especially cattle, on which it is the most economically significant ectoparasite in the world. It is known as the Australian cattle tick, southern cattle tick, Cuban tick, Madagascar blue tick, and Puerto Rican Texas fever tick.
It is classified as a hard tick in the family Ixodidae. It is a small teardrop-shaped arachnid with a hardened plate called the scutum covering its head. Males are entirely covered in scutum on their backs with additional plates called festoons along their sides. The body can be brown or pale in nymphs and darkens as the tick matures. Adults have eight cream-colored legs.
In R. microplus the hypostome has a hexagonal base (basis capitulum) which can be used as an identifying characteristic. Ticks may be identified by the arrangement of hair-like structures called setae. In R. microplus the setae are arranged in rows of two or three along the tick's body behind the scutum.
“Rhipicephalus microplus” enters the record as species of arachnid. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rhipicephalus, microplus and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4808965.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rhipicephalus microplus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.