‘Haba na haba hujaza kibaba’ Little by little fills up the measure! This Swahili proverb encapsulates the contributions made by many people, starting in 1806, towards an understanding of the genus Rhipicephalus an important group of ixodid ticks occurring mainly, but by no means exclusively, in Africa. So far as we know our book represents the first completed attempt to review this knowledge. Almost certainly G.H.F. Nuttall, C. Warburton, W.F. Cooper and L.E. Robinson originally intended to include the genus in their series of monographs on the Ixodoidea but they never managed to do so. The first part, by Nuttall et al. on the family Argasidae, was published in 1908. Thereafter three further parts on individual ixodid genera appeared, by Nuttall & Warburton (1911, 1915) on Ixodes and Haernaphysalis, respectively, and by Robinson (1926) on Amblyomma.

In 1939 F. Zumpt, in the first of a series of papers entitled ‘Vorstudie zu einer Revision der Gattung Rhipicephalus’ noted that he planned to revise the genus in collaboration with Dr W. Minning. However, after publishing a key to the known species within the genus in 1949 he apparently abandoned this idea. In 1960 D.R. Arthur, of King's College, London, produced the fifth volume in the monographic series started by Nuttall and his colleagues in which he dealt with the genera Dermacentor, Anocentor, Cosrniomnia, Boophilus and Margaropus. At the same time he gave notice of his intention to complete the series, including a study of Rhipicephalus and Rhipicentor, but neither this nor his proposed volume on the genus Hyalomma ever materialized.