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TICK FACTS. Ticks are small, eight-legged bloodsucking parasites — arachnids, not insects — that feed on animals and sometimes people. Some ticks are infected with germs that can cause illness ...
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.
Deer tick 3D rendering of a male and female deer tick Ixodes scapularis is the main vector of Lyme disease in North America. [ 14 ] The CDC reported over 30,000 new cases of the disease in 2016 alone, the majority of which were contracted in the summer months, which is when ticks are most likely to bite humans. [ 15 ]
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 ]
In tick-dense areas, perform regular tick checks while you're outside. When you return: If you know you were exposed to ticks, put your exposed clothing directly into the dryer on high heat for 20 ...
A tick bite does not automatically transfer diseases to the host. Instead, the tick must be attached to the host for a period of time, generally 6–8 hours [9] but sometimes as little as 3–6 hours, [10] before it is capable of transferring disease. The earlier the tick is removed from a host, the less likely it is to contract the illness.
Many species are parasitic (most famous of which are ticks), but not all. For example, about half of the 10,000 known species in the suborder Mesostigmata are predatory and cryptozoan , living in soil-litter, rotting wood, dung, carrion, nests or house dust.
The Ixodidae are the family of hard ticks or scale ticks, [1] one of the three families of ticks, consisting of over 700 species. They are known as 'hard ticks' because they have a scutum or hard shield, which the other major family of ticks, the 'soft ticks' ( Argasidae ), lack.