Collection of the ixodoid ticks (families Ixodidae and Argasidae) is curated by O.V. Voltzit.

Ixodes holocyclus

Argasid ticks were donated by M.V. Pospelova-Strom, an acknowledged expert on this group. This part of collection includes most species of the former USSR, as well as great number of species from other regions (India, Iran, Africa).
Ixodid ticks were represented for a long time by just separate specimens of Fedchenko's expedition to Turkestan. It was not until the 1970s when new collections began to come to the Museum: these were preparations by N.I. Kudryashova from Caucasus, by S.N. Rybin from Kirgizia, and by P.D. Sagdieva from Primorsky Province.

 

Amblyomma variegatum

Ixodid part of collection became to grow up much more rapidly since 1990 when Voltzit became affiliated with the Museum. One of the first and largest was the entry of the basically native ixodid collection from Institute of Medical Parasitology gathered by Russian parasitologists, others were obtained from tropical Asia, Africa, America due to exchange with H. Hoogstraal and P.-C. Morel. No less important materials on the world fauna were obtained from J.E. Keirans (USA) and Jiang Zai-jie (China).
The fauna of the former USSR is nearly completely represented at species level, except for few most rare species. There are good samples from South Africa (by V.N. Belozerov), Peru (V.M. Malygin), Turkey and Nepal (Voltzit).
Unfortunately, other tick taxa are poorly represented or lacking.