SOURCES OF INFORMATION

The data presented in this book have been obtained from many sources. A major source has been the data files of the United States National Tick Collection (USNTC), whose history has been documented by Durden, Keirans & Oliver (1996). It had its origins early in the century at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory, Hamilton, Montana, hence the prefix ‘RML’ to its collection numbers. In 1983 it was donated to the United States National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution), where it was curated byJ.E.K. Shortly after H. Hoogstraal died in 1986 his tick collection was also sent to the Smithsonian Institution for incorporation into the USNTC. In 1990 the collection was transferred on long-term enhancement loan from the Smithsonian Institution to the Institute of Arthropodology and Parasitology, Georgia Southern University, where it is still curated by J.E.K., assisted by L. A. Durden. It is the world's largest tick collection, including over 300 types and more than 122 500 individual accessioned collections.

Another important source of information has been material from the collections of The Natural History Museum, London, loaned to us by Anne Baker. These include, amongst many others, the Nuttall Tick Collection (Keirans, 1985) and the Tanzanian Tick Survey Collection (Yeoman & Walker, 1967). Among other sources from which we have obtained data are the Onderstepoort Tick Collection, built up largely by Gertrud Theiler; the Namibian Tick Survey Collection, by courtesy of Heloise Heyne; the collection of the Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium, including many specimens obtained during colonial times in the Democratic Republic of Congo and now curated by F. Puylaert; and numerous collections from East Africa and South Africa accumulated by J.B.W. and I.G.H. respectively.