Tick identification nc3/28/2024 ![]() These are one of the most common ticks among the Southeastern United States that bite humans, according to the CDC. Heustess submitted his tick to a tick-ID program in North Carolina and discovered it was a blacklegged tick. “I came in from building a garden shed off the New River, and one had attached on my hip,” he says. Cam Heustess, a Western North Carolina construction worker, found a tick on his hip last summer while completing a project on the New River. Often ticks are found in hard-to-see areas such as the groin, armpits or scalp, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When someone - or something - brushes along the edge of the forest, ticks latch on with their two front legs.Ī tick can attach to any part of the human body. ![]() And because they can’t fly or jump, they sit, with their first pair of legs outstretched. Ticks use their third and fourth pair of legs to rest on the tips of leaves and blades of grass. They do so by waiting in leaf litter and low-lying brush. Consequently, tick populations are growing and incidences of tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease have been on the rise.īefore a tick spreads disease, however, they first need to find a meal. Adult ticks become inactive during the winter months, resuming their quest for a blood-meal in late February to early March.Ī changing climate has both shortened and warmed the winter season in some regions, contributing to the ideal environmental conditions for ticks. Photo courtesy of the CDCĪs an adult, ticks are questing for their final host. Two adult female blackleged ticks on a hiking boot. Ticks are most difficult to detect in this stage because they are so small, measuring less than 2mm. They stay attached to their host for days before dropping off and transitioning into the adult stage. In their nymphal stage during spring and summer, ticks begin to seek out human hosts. Between fall and spring, as the weather warms, larvae molt and enter a more active stage as nymphs. Larvae are active but less likely to transmit tick-borne pathogens during this stage. These eggs hatch in summer and larval ticks emerge. After completing their two- to three-year lifespan, female ticks detach from a host and lay eggs, typically in the springtime. After an egg hatches, a tick must have a blood-meal at each stage in order to survive. Ticks go through four life stages: egg, larva, nymph and adult. “Yeah, they’re ancient,” says Timothy Driscoll, an associate professor of biology at West Virginia University who studies ticks at the university’s Vector-borne Infectious Disease Laboratory. ![]() Photo courtesy of Erik Karits By Makaelah Waltersįor at least 100 million years, there have been poppy seed-sized blood-sucking creatures called ticks carrying bacteria that cause various illnesses in humans. ![]() Ixodes scapularis, commonly known as the deer tick or blacklegged tick. ![]()
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