Tick Species in Germany: Identifying the Castor Bean Tick, Ornate Dog Tick & Co.

TickSpot Guide · August 2026

In short: Germany is home to several tick species, but one of them accounts for the vast majority of bites on humans: the castor bean tick (also called the common sheep tick). The other species are either rare, prefer to bite animals — or, like the immigrant Hyalomma tick, are spectacular but marginal in numbers.

Castor bean tick / common sheep tick (Ixodes ricinus) — the standard case

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI, Germany's national disease-control agency), this is the most common tick species in Germany. If you find a tick on yourself, it is very likely this one. Adult females have a red-brown abdomen with a dark shield at the front; nymphs are only one to two millimetres in size and therefore particularly easy to overlook — which is exactly why they are responsible for most infections.

Transmits: Borrelia (Lyme disease) and the TBE (tick-borne encephalitis) virus, as well as Anaplasma, Babesia, Rickettsia and the pathogen that causes tularaemia. The castor bean tick is thus the species that most guides — including ours — are about.

Ornate dog tick (Dermacentor reticulatus) — the patterned one

Easy to recognise by its most striking feature: its dorsal shield is marbled, or lightly patterned, rather than uniformly dark as on the castor bean tick. It is also somewhat larger and is spreading noticeably in Germany — it now occurs across large parts of the country, with concentrations along the Upper Rhine, in Saarland and in Brandenburg; in the far north it is rarer.

Transmits: above all Babesia canis, the pathogen behind canine babesiosis ("dog malaria"). For dog owners it is therefore the most relevant species — see "Can Ticks Transmit Diseases to Dogs and Cats?". It rarely bites humans. Whether it also transmits TBE to humans is occasionally claimed, but is not well substantiated — which is why we do not list it here as a TBE vector.

Hedgehog tick (Ixodes hexagonus) — the nest dweller

Around 3.5 to 4.5 millimetres in size when unfed, and outwardly similar to the castor bean tick. It lives mainly in the nests and burrows of its hosts — hedgehogs, foxes, but also dogs and cats — and is presumably distributed nationwide. It bites humans rather rarely, but it can carry Borrelia. Anyone with a hedgehog in the garden, or a pet that roams through hedges and undergrowth, is most likely to encounter it.

Brown dog tick (Rhipicephalus sanguineus) — the holiday souvenir tick

Originally at home in the Mediterranean region and, as a rule, brought back from trips with the dog. One peculiarity makes it a special case among all the species mentioned here: it copes with dry air and is therefore the only species that can establish itself permanently in heated homes — more on that in "Can Ticks Survive Indoors or in Your Bed?".

Transmits in dogs, among others, Ehrlichia, Babesia and Hepatozoon.

Hyalomma — the large immigrant

The species that regularly makes the news: clearly larger than native ticks (up to around two centimetres when engorged), with strikingly striped legs. It has eyes and behaves differently from the castor bean tick — instead of waiting, it actively pursues its host over several metres.

It arrives in Germany as a nymph on migratory birds. A citizen-science project run by the University of Hohenheim ("Projekt Tropenzecken", the tropical tick project) collected around 8,100 submitted ticks between February 2019 and December 2021 — among them 202 Hyalomma specimens; in 2018 there had been 35. Around 30 percent of the examined animals carried Rickettsia aeschlimannii, a pathogen that causes tick-bite fever.

Some perspective, so the figure isn't misread: 202 finds in three years is very few, measured against millions of tick bites. What's more, striking specimens are far more likely to be sent in than ordinary castor bean ticks — the composition of such submissions therefore says nothing about how common a species actually is. Hyalomma is a trend worth watching, but no reason to do the normal tick check any differently.

What this means for you in practice

For everyday purposes you don't need to be able to identify tick species. The recommended course of action is identical for all of them: remove it promptly and properly, then keep an eye on the bite site. The species only becomes interesting in two cases — with an unusually large tick with striped legs (Hyalomma; feel free to report it to the University of Hohenheim), and with dogs, where the ornate dog tick matters because of babesiosis.

How to find the tiny nymphs of the castor bean tick in the first place — the case that applies almost always — is covered in "Spot Ticks Instantly: The Inverted-Color Camera Trick".

Sources

• Robert Koch Institute: FAQ Ticks (castor bean tick as the most common species, further species occurring in Germany)
• ECDC: Factsheet Ixodes ricinus
• University of Hohenheim, Projekt Tropenzecken: Press release of 21 December 2021 (202 Hyalomma finds 2019–2021)
• Chitimia-Dobler L et al.: Parasites & Vectors 2019 (Hyalomma finds 2018)
• Baden-Württemberg State Health Office: information sheet on the brown dog tick

Important: This article provides general information and does not replace medical or veterinary advice. Reliable species identification is only possible by specialists.