The purpose of this study was to identify and to know the prevalence of ticks recovered from dogs of urban area of Porto Alegre, RS. Four hundred and fifty stray dogs were examined and the ticks found were identified according to the species and parasitic stage. A percentage of 52.44% of those dogs were infested with ticks, among these, 93.22% were parasitized by Rhipicephalus sanguineus, 2.97% by Amblyomma aureolatum and 3.81% by both species. R. sanguineus was the more prevalent species among infested animals representing 99.43% of the total number of ticks sampled. All parasitic stages of R. sanguineus were present on the stray dogs but only the adult stage of A. aureolatum was found.
ticks species; prevalence; stray dogs; Porto Alegre; Rio Grande do Sul; Brazil