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With tick season right around the corner in most areas, we hope this tick-identification gallery will help you limit your risk and teach you a little more about these complex and creepy creatures.
These ticks, commonly known as cattle ticks or blue ticks, have a highly characteristic morphology and one-host lifecycle. They have high specificity for cattle as hosts and their morphological characteristics used for identification are less distinct than those of three-host rhipicephalids such as R. appendiculatus .
Ticks are external parasites, living by feeding on the blood of mammals, birds, and sometimes reptiles and amphibians. The timing of the origin of ticks is uncertain, though the oldest known tick fossils are from the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years old. Ticks are widely distributed around the world, especially in warm, humid climates.
Rhipicephalus sanguineus, commonly called the brown dog tick, kennel tick, [1] or pantropical dog tick, [1] is a species of tick found worldwide, but more commonly in warmer climates. This species is unusual among ticks in that its entire lifecycle can be completed indoors. [ 2 ]
Rhipicephalus is a genus of ticks in the family Ixodidae, the hard ticks, consisting of about 74 or 75 species. [2] [3] Most are native to tropical Africa. [2] Rhipicephalus ticks are commonly called 'the brown tick' as they are mostly brown in colour. [4] Most adult ticks in this genus do not have colour patterns on their scutum (inornate). [4]
Ixodes scapularis is commonly known as the deer tick or black-legged tick (although some people reserve the latter term for Ixodes pacificus, which is found on the west coast of the US), and in some parts of the US as the bear tick. [2] It was also named Ixodes dammini until it was shown to be the same species in 1993. [3]
Amblyomma americanum, also known as the lone star tick, the northeastern water tick, or the turkey tick, is a type of tick indigenous to much of the eastern United States and Mexico, that bites painlessly and commonly goes unnoticed, remaining attached to its host for as long as seven days until it is fully engorged with blood.
Haemaphysalis leporispalustris, the rabbit tick (occasionally known as the grouse tick), is a species of tick that is widely distributed in the Americas, stretching from Alaska to Argentina. H. leporispalustris is known to have one of the largest distributions for a tick originating in the New World.