¹Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Laboratory, Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ankara University, TR-06070 Ankara - TÜRKİYE
²Graduate School of Health Sciences, Ankara University, TR-06070 Ankara - TÜRKİYE DOI : 10.9775/kvfd.2026.36621 Ticks of the genus Haemaphysalis (Acari: Ixodidae) comprise a diverse group of species widely distributed across the Palearctic region and are known to harbor a variety of pathogens of medical and veterinary importance. Despite its relatively wide geographic distribution, the tick species Haemaphysalis parva remains relatively understudied from a molecular perspective, and reliable DNA barcode data for this species are largely lacking in global genetic databases. In the present study, we performed a mitochondrial cox1-based DNA barcoding and genetic characterization of H. parva specimens collected from active populations in Central Anatolia, Türkiye. A total of 16 adult ticks (eight females and eight males) collected from eight sampling sites were morphologically identified and subjected to molecular analyses. Sequencing of the mitochondrial cox1 gene revealed seven distinct haplotypes among the analyzed specimens, with moderate haplotype diversity (h = 0.6917) and low nucleotide diversity (π = 0.00162). BLAST analyses demonstrated high sequence similarity with previously reported H. parva sequences from Türkiye, Iran, and Ghana. Bayesian phylogenetic reconstruction confirmed that all haplotypes identified in this study clustered within the main H. parva lineage and revealed two well-supported subclades within the species. The analysis also suggested possible inconsistencies among the taxonomic annotations of certain publicly available sequences in genetic databases. The generated sequences were deposited in GenBank and the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD), establishing the first validated DNA barcode reference for H. parva. The findings of this study expand the currently available genetic data for this species and provide an important molecular reference for future taxonomic, ecological, and epidemiological investigations of H. parva. Keywords : DNA barcoding, cox1, haplotype diversity, Haemaphysalis, phylogenetic analysis, tick genetics, Anatolia