What is a tick?
A tick is a type of mite. Ticks are ectoparasites (external parasites) that live off of the blood of various birds, mammals, and sometimes reptiles.
Ticks are not only annoying but dangerous. They carry a number of diseases including Lyme disease, Q fever, Colorado tick fever, tularemia, tick-borne relapsing fever, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis and Tick-borne meningoencephalitis, as well as anaplasmosis in cattle and canine jaundice.
What do they look like?
A tick is a small bug about the size of the head of a match. There are many different species but this is an example of a tick:
The young ticks have 6 legs and the adults have 8. They vary in size and appearance depending on the species.
What do they do?
Ticks attach themselves to the skin of their hosts. They will bury into your skin and if they are there long enough your new skin will grow over them.
Physical contact is the only method of transportation for a tick. Ticks do not jump or fly but they will drop down off of their perches(often times trees) and onto a host.
Some ticks attack from the ground. Emerging from cracks or crevices located in the woods or even inside a home or kennel, where infestations of "seed ticks" (the six-legged stage of newborn ticks) can attack in numbers up to 3,000 at a time.
Don't Worry!
These bugs sound like they come straight out of a horror movie but they arn't really that bad! Usually you will only find a few ticks if not one on you or your pet at a time depending on where you live.
Adult ticks are easier to spot than the younger ones but they are still visable and removable.
How to avoid a tick
Changes in temperature and day length are some of the factors signalling a tick to seek a host. Ticks can detect heat emitted or carbon dioxide respired from a nearby host. They will generally drop off the animal when full, but this may take several days. In some cases ticks will live for some time on the blood of an animal. Ticks are more active outdoors in warm weather, but can attack a host at any time.
Ticks can be found in most wooded or forested regions throughout the world. They are especially common in areas where there are deer trails or human tracks. Ticks are especially abundant near water, where warm-blooded animals come to drink, and in meadows wherever shrubs and brush provide woody surfaces and cover.
In Virginia I have only seen ticks dropping from a tree so the rule of thumb would be to check for ticks after a long hike or day outdoors.
Checking for a Tick
Ticks will attach themselves to just about any part of your body but the most common places are the crevices of your body. Such as your arm pits, the back of your knees, groin and theigh area, etc.
But ticks can be anywhere on your skin so the best way to check from them is in the bathroom or shower. Remove all of your clothes
and scan your body and head for small black dots.If you see one DON'T PULL IT OUT. It should look roughly like this:
Once you have spotted your tick(s) you will want to remove them ASAP.
Removing your tick
There are a few methods for removing ticks. For the method I will describe you will need the following materials.
- Old finger nail polish
- Small Tweezers
- paper towel / tissue
- antiseptic
- small jar
- Once you have found your tick you will want to cover it with nail polish and wait about 30 seconds for it to back out of your skin a bit.
- Next you will want to grab the tick with the tweezers closest to the skin(this may hurt if you are a hairy individual).
- Pull the tick straight out and do not twist or jerk.
- Depending on the position of the tick there may be legs or the head still stuck in or on your skin if this is the case try your best to pick the rest of the pieces out.
- Put the tick in a jar if it has been on your skin more then a few hours incase you become sick. Then you can identify what type of tick it was if needed.
- Clean up your body part and apply the antiseptic once the tick has been removed
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