Winter 2020
TickSmart Newsletter
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Happy 2020 from TickEncounter!
As we enter this new decade, we recommit to our resolution to bring you up-to-date tick-borne disease prevention information, and to be a readily available resource to answer your questions and help you and your family become TickSmart-er in upcoming year. Join us in the commitment to being TickSafe this year while you enjoy this season’s newsletter offerings.
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Join us in the commitment to being TickSafe this year while you enjoy this season’s newsletter offerings.
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- Tick Forecast – Be prepared!
- Latest blog – Can you have moose ticks without moose?
- Tick FAQ Highlight – What’s the deal with male ticks?
- TickEncounter Case Files – The case of the mysterious bites
- TickSmart Products and Services
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A note to all of our 2019 financial backers
:
A big
THANK YOU
for your generous donations and other financial support provided to URI’s TickEncounter during 2019. Your support is greatly appreciated. A couple of our top achievements in 2019 due, in part, to your backing include:
- The launch of TickSpotters 2.0 a cloud-based platform which cut our response times in half, and is bringing us closer to our goal of real time sharing of national tick surveillance data (coming soon in 2020).
- Reporting out results of a major outdoor worker study evaluating the effectiveness and safety of wearing long-lasting permethrin-treated clothing for personal protection in high-tick risk settings. We were able to determine a 65% tick encounter prevention efficacy as well as demonstrate that long-term wearers had no greater evidence of permethrin exposure compared to people who did not wear treated clothing.
In 2020, in addition to increasing the reach of our national tick prevention education programming, our goals include: field testing the tick-killing effectiveness of 18 different natural tick control products, finishing work on a large backyard integrated tick management assessment, and continuing pre-clinical assessments of novel candidate anti-tick vaccines.
We recognize that you have many different ways to spend your money and we appreciate you choosing to help us to improve tick prevention literacy in North America.
THANK YOU!
We look forward to your continued support.
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Current
Right: Adult female blacklegged tick (
Ixodes scapularis
) crawls on a human host. Photo credit: B. Mullen
The winter weather this year, at least for us here in Southern New England, is a bit unusual. The temperatures have been warmer and there has been quite a lot of rain. Elsewhere there are record-setting snows, like the storm that traveled from southern California through to the Northeast. These weather oddities may have people encountering the winter season a little differently than usual. So for those of you who’ve had a milder winter and are spending more time outdoors, it’s important to remember that
blacklegged ticks
ARE active in the winter, but only when the temperatures are above freezing and there isn’t a layer of snow on the ground covering them. But don’t forget – they’re simply incapacitated,
NOT
dead. Check out our
Polar Vorticks experiment
to see what we mean! The key to reactivating these ticks is several consecutive days of non-freezing temperatures and a lack of snow cover.
However, blacklegged ticks aren’t the only ticks to watch out for.
Brown dog ticks
are adapted as sub-tropical ticks but can be active all year, inside and outside in sub-tropical climates (think Florida) but inside year-round anywhere. These ticks can pose a major problem. In addition to quickly infesting homes, they can carry spotted fever group rickettsia, including the germ causing Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
(Rickettsia rickettsii
), and are capable of infecting dogs and (more rarely) humans.
Eradicating brown dog ticks
from a home is difficult and costly, but living with a brown dog tick infestation is a nightmare. It’s definitely worth taking the extra time to check your dog after it has been at a kennel, shelter, or any facility where dogs are kept in close quarters.
Another risk at this time of year is the possibility of moving brown dog ticks from warmer wintertime locations back to more permanent northern residences. Snowbirds that escape the coldest parts of winter in milder locations in Arizona, southern Florida and Texas in particular risk bringing brown dog ticks back home to the more northerly tier of states. Obtaining rescue dogs, especially from southern sources, is another risk factor for brown dog tick encounters.
Blacklegged ticks or brown dog ticks, the point is you should remain vigilant for ticks throughout the cold months. We’ve been receiving many
TickSpotters
reports of several day-fed blacklegged ticks found on people and pets from both east and west coasts – an indication that ticks are still active and prevention measures are not being taken. By the way, on the west coast, you’re seeing BOTH nymphs and adult
western blacklegged ticks
right now (Jan-Apr.), while elsewhere in the country there are only adult deer ticks. Continue performing tick checks on people and pets after time outdoors, and definitely continue treating your pet with
tick preventative
each month!
Below: Dr. Tom Mather demonstrating that freezing temperatures don't kill ticks.
Photo credit: B. Mullen
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Looking Ahead
Now is the time to begin preparing for how you will protect you and your family against ticks as they begin to emerge when temperature rise. Adult blacklegged, Lone Star and American dog ticks all start to become active in March and April (maybe even a little sooner in southern states); the latter two types of ticks continue their activity into the summer with adult blacklegged ticks remaining on the scene only through May. Could you, for certain, tell each of these types of tick apart? What about an adult from a nymph or larvae? Identification is important because each type carries its own type of disease-causing germs and its own chance of causing disease. Take the time now to make sure you
know the ticks
found in your region and
know when they’re active
.
In addition to daily tick checks, consider stepping up your TickSmart™ actions by looking into treating outdoor clothing and shoes with
permethrin
. This is the best and most effective way to ward off ticks and diseases they’re carrying by simply getting dressed. Learn more
here
. You also can prevent tick encounters at home by making a plan for a
TickSafe yard
. Consider tactics like perimeter spray treatments, placing mouse-targeted devices, or simply keeping shrubs and grasses trimmed, deer fences in place, and wood piles cleared to make your yard unattractive to ticks and the wildlife that carry them. Check out our diagram for a
TickSmart™ backyard
.
Click
here
for more TickSmart™ ideas to stay tick safe. If you do have a tick encounter, make sure to save the tick, snap a picture, and send it to our
TickSpotters program
for identification and risk assessment.
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Moose ticks...in southern Rhode Island?
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Winter ticks
(Dermacentor albipictus),
also known commonly as moose ticks, have been making the news in some circles (
http://bit.ly/mooseticknews
), most recently as yet another bellwether of climate change. Moose populations are increasingly taking a hit as this tick, once considered a rare stressor, is now a potential population disrupter because of delayed and warmer winters. But a strange phenomenon seemed to appear out of nowhere this past fall that had our TickGuy, Dr. Tom Mather, literally scratching his head. These ticks were showing up in southern New England where there are no moose. If you love moose, or are just curious to know more about the ticks around you, check out his newest
blog post.
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Answering questions about your tick encounters
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Question:
"
I've done a great amount of research however at least one thing I cannot get clear on is whether male ticks feed on blood. I've read contradictory statements. No one really provides a definitive answer. I've also heard male ticks feed on plant nectar. Is that true?"
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TERC Answer:
Actually, some male ticks do briefly feed on blood but others do not. Here's how it works: Ticks are divided into 3 different families; most ticks that are familiar to people are in the family Ixodidae also known as hard ticks (another family Argasidae are called soft ticks). Within the Ixodidae ticks, there are 2 groups--one called prostriata that includes all ticks in the genus Ixodes; another called metastriata includes the rest of the ticks in the family Ixodidae--the genera
Dermacentor, Amblyomma, Haemaphysalis, Rhipicephalus, Hyalomma
. Male ticks in the more evolutionarily advanced metastriata need to attach and feed partially (they actually do not engorge like the female tick but may look a little puffy) to stimulate sperm production. Male
Ixodes
ticks do not need to feed; their sperm is ready to go and in fact, they often are already mating with females as they quest for hosts. We've done a study demonstrating that male blacklegged ticks
(Ixodes scapularis)
do not
transmit the Lyme disease germ to hosts even though they are infected with the germ. However, male American dog ticks, Lone Star ticks, brown dog ticks, and other metastriate ticks attach, begin feeding to stimulate sperm production, and then they detach to go in search of a female tick. Once they find a female of the correct species, they reattach close to the female and then transfer their sperm packet to the female genital opening. Different from the male
Ixodes
, male metastriate ticks are capable of transmitting germs if they are infected. Male
Ixodes
ticks attach directly to the female tick, actually inserting their rather vestigial hypostome into the female tick's genital opening (see picture attached, please provide photo credit: TickEncounter Resource Center if you use it).
BTW, while male mosquitoes feed on nectar, ticks never do.
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The Case of the Mysterious Bites
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This past fall we received an email from a highly concerned resident of eastern Long Island. She explained that she and her husband had been getting lots of small and extremely itchy bites all over their bodies for the past four weeks. Most of the bites were concentrated around the groin, upper thighs, and buttock areas, as well as under arms and between fingers.
Her email was prompted by finding two miniscule 6-legged bugs that were only visible under a magnifying glass. One was found while she was in her bed, one crawling on a cell phone, and another larger adult tick also found in her bed. She reported that they have a dog that’s on tick meds, and that sleeps in their bed. The bedding has been washed but to no avail. No bites have been found on the couple’s two children.
She’s concerned that there is a nest of “baby ticks” in the bedroom seeing as they can’t seem to contain the source of them and reached out to ask our help in ridding themselves of these almost invisible biting attackers.
From the photo above: what do
you
think these Long Islanders are dealing with?
* * *
Based on the evidence shared with us (location, time of year, and the photo) we were confident that this family was encountering a continual mess of larval lone star ticks. These ticks are also notorious for itchy bites. The good news in this situation is that Lone star ticks cannot survive for more than a day or two in your home (they need constant sources of re-hydration), so they are not setting up shop indoors. If you ever find yourself in a similar position, because the ticks are so hard to see, you can use a lint roller to get them off your skin. While they are biting, these larvae (or, newly-hatched ticks) are not transmitting any diseases. However, their bites can sometimes establish an allergy to red meat.
Lone star larvae are incredibly active in the late summer and fall (especially on eastern Long Island) and we often find that they get in houses by swarming pet's furry legs. So, if the dog brought more larvae in each time it returned from outside, washing the bedding once wouldn’t do much to rid the bedroom of these pests. What about the dog’s tick treatment—is it up-to-date? Often the active ingredients do not quite reach the feet, where the dog will most likely encounter larvae outside. We recommend saturating a rag or old towel with
Sawyer's permethrin
, allowing it to dry fully, and using it to wipe off dog's feet, legs, and belly after it comes in from an outing. Treating the dog's bed with permethrin will also help kill any ticks that make it inside on your pet. We recommend the Seresto collar, and for large infestations a chewable (e.g. NexGard, Simparica, Bravecto) can be added to help tackle the ticks on multiple levels.
Have a tick-related case or question that you’d like us to answer? Send it our way at:
[email protected]
.
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Check out our TickSmart
products
to find tick identification magnets, tick check reminder shower cards, and other items designed to help you protect you and your family from tick bites.
You can now order TickSmart products directly online!
Visit our virtual store
here
.
In what ways are you using these products to educate and empower your community to be tick safe? Let us know! Post to our Facebook or tweet at us with a picture and post with the hashtag
#WeAreTickSmart
. Let’s get a trend going – online and in real life.
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