“…I. hookeri has previously been identified at three locations within Slovakia; near Šoporña, associated to Haemaphysalis concinna , 41 close to the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, in I. ricinus 42,43 and in the Slovak Karst, isolated from both Ixodes ricinus and H. concinna . 40 According to our hypothesis, the western Hungarian cluster of sampling point b,c,d and g (Sárvár, Mosonmagyaróvár, Sáska, and Pénzesgyőr, respectively) may be associated to the wasp populations described by Bratislava 42,43 and by Šoporña 41 in Slovakia. Even though, several geopositions, including sampling point m, p, q, r and s (Nagy-Hideg-Hegy, Kékes, Lillafüred, Aggtelek and Háromhuta respectively) lay relatively close to the Hungarian-Slovakian border, and sampling point r is situated only few kilometers away from the I. hookeri associated Slovak Karst, 40 no tick metagenomes contained read sets aligning to the I. hookeri reference 28S ribosomal RNA gene at these sampling points.…”