Hard ticks can transmit different pathogens to livestock and human. Moreover, ticks can cause severe toxic conditions such as paralysis, toxicities and irritation. The purpose of this study is to determine the distribution of Rhipicephalus turanicus and also predict the best ecological niches for this tick in Golestan province. A cross-sectional study was conducted from October 2014 to December 2015 to determine the prevalence of tick infestation in sheep in three different regions of climate condition included hillside, plain and coastal areas in Golestan province. MaxEnt software version 3.3.3 was used to predict the appropriate ecological niches for Rhipicephalus turanicus in Golestan province. Random test percentage was 20%. The model runs 10 times for each species. Bioclimatic variables and altitude layers were obtained from the World Clim-Global Climate database at the spatial resolution of 1km 2 or 30 arc-s. Jackknife analysis in the MaxEnt software was used to evaluate the contribution of the environmental variables. Finally, to verify the obtained models AUC graph prepared and the results were evaluated. Totally, 3904 sheep were examined and 533 Rhipicephalus turanicus were collected. Rh. sanguineus: A total of 14 presence records were used for training and 2 for testing the model in 10 replicates. The average test area under curve (AUC) for the replicate runs is 0.770, and the standard deviation is 0.154. The environmental variable with highest gain when used in isolation is precipitation of wettest month (mm) and the environmental variable that decreases the gain the most when it is omitted is mean temperature (C). Rh. turanicus is a three host tick that has been identified as a vector of Babesia ovis to the susceptible hosts. In this study based on the modeling output, costal and plain area located in the north and central province was predicted as a desirable habitat for this tick species. As a regard sheep population density in these areas is high, continuous monitoring for the presence of ticks and tick-borne diseases are very important.

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