Dermacentor occidentalis Ticks and Link to Rickettsia lanei Infections, California, USA.

Rickettsia lanei is a newly recognized spotted fever group rickettsial species that causes severe Rocky Mountain spotted fever-like illness. We used genome sequencing, enabled by hybridization capture-based target enrichment, to establish Dermacentor occidentalis ticks as the likely source of a human infection with R. lanei in California, USA.