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We conducted a large-scale, passive regional survey of ticks associated with wildlife of the eastern United States. Our primary goals were to better assess the current geographical distribution of exoticHaemaphysalis longicornisand to identify potential wild mammalian and avian host species. However, this large-scale survey also provided valuable information regarding the distribution and host associations for many other important tick species that utilize wildlife as hosts.

Ticks were opportunistically collected by cooperating state and federal wildlife agencies. All ticks were placed in the supplied vials and host information was recorded, including host species, age, sex, examination date, location (at least county and state), and estimated tick burden. All ticks were identified to species using morphology, and suspectH. longicorniswere confirmed through molecular techniques.

In total, 1940 hosts were examined from across 369 counties from 23 states in the eastern USA. From these submissions, 20,626 ticks were collected and identified belonging to 11 different species. Our passive surveillance efforts detected exoticH. longicornisfrom nine host species from eight states. Notably, some of the earliest detections ofH. longicornisin the USA were collected from wildlife through this passive surveillance network. In addition, numerous new county reports were generated forAmblyomma americanum,Amblyomma maculatum,Dermacentor albipictus,Dermacentor variabilis, andIxodes scapularis.

This study provided data on ticks collected from animals from 23 different states in the eastern USA between 2010 and 2021, with the primary goal of better characterizing the distribution and host associations of the exotic tickH. longicornis;however, new distribution data on tick species of veterinary or medical importance were also obtained. Collectively, our passive surveillance has detected numerous new county reports forH. longicornisas well asI. scapularis.Our study utilizing passive wildlife surveillance for ticks across the eastern USA is an effective method for surveying a diversity of wildlife host species, allowing us to better collect data on current tick distributions relevant to human and animal health.