Cosmiomma

Cosmiomma is a genus of ticks first discovered by Paul Schulze in 1919. It is monospecific, being represented by the single species Cosmiomma hippopotamensis. It was first described in 1843 by Henry Denny from specimens collected from a hippopotamus in Southern Africa, and has been called "one of the most unusual, beautiful, and rare tick species known to the world."

==Taxonomy and systematics== The taxonomic position of the genus Cosmiomma has been unstable since the male and female of the type species were first described as two separate species. As late as 1997, two published studies based on the type species' morphology concluded separately that Cosmiomma was most closely related to Rhipicephalus species ticks and that Cosmiomma was more closely related to Dermacentor species.