Ixodes ricinus ticks are mainly distributed along the Norwegian coastline from Østfold County in the southeast up approximately to 66°N in Nordland County.
Recent reports of Melitaea ornata Christoph, 1893 from countries within the Western Palaearctic region, for example from Spain, Bosnia Herzegovina and Asia, have considerably widened the previously accepted distribution of this species. Details of localities in more than twenty-five
countries, with references, are given. Those countries in which the presence of M. ornata has been reported but without any substantial evidence are noted.
A new Western Palaearctic species of the genus Platyspathius Viereck, 1911, P. picardi sp. nov. is described and illustrated. This species is the most similar to the Afrotropical P. clymene Nixon, 1941 and the Eastern Palaearctic P. hospitus Belokobylskij et Ku, 2001 with which it is compared. A key for determination of the Palaearctic species of Platyspathius is provided.
The detailed structure of the spiracles in the Ixodoidea has hitherto received little or no attention at the hands of zoologists; at the same time, these organs are sufficiently extraordinary to make it a matter of surprise that, so far as our knowledge of the literature goes, not one of the numerous contributors to the subject of tick anatomy has found it worth while to undertake a complete description or to publish figures to illustrate it. Batelli (1891) gives a short account of the structure of the spiracle of a tick, presumably Ixodes ricinus, with a single figure, but with this exception we have been unable to find any further information on the subject.
A new species, Baetis majus Tiunova sp. nov., is described and illustrated based on larvae and reared adults discovered in the Russian Far East. The differential identification of this species was determined by the characteristics of other representatives of the genus Baetis Leach, including subgenera Baetis Leach and Tenuibaetis Kang & Yang from Eastern and Western Palaearctic, Nearctic and Oriental regions. In addition to morphological studies, DNA barcoding of the described species with average intraspecific K2P distances to nearest neighbours is documented. We reconstructed the phylogenetic relationships of all available cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences of the subgenera of Baetis and Tenuibaetis from four regions. Bayesian analysis using 47 morphological characters additional to partial COI sequences did not allow to determine the species-group of the Baetis genus to which the described species belongs.
Publisher Correction: Infection with Borrelia afzelii and manipulation of the egg surface microbiota have no effect on the fitness of immature Ixodes ricinus ticks
