Sioux Falls Argus Leader, SD
06-18-07
Thick with ticks
This is prime time to watch for the crawly critters
Is your scalp crawling? If not, you probably haven't spent much time outdoors recently. Spring rains and warmer weather have produced a bumper crop of ticks.
By Staff and wire reports
Is your scalp crawling?
If not, you probably haven't spent much time outdoors recently. Spring rains and warmer weather have produced a bumper crop of ticks.
As nice weather lures people outdoors for fishing or hikes, more ticks make their presence noticed, says Ken Holscher, an associate professor in the entomology department at Iowa State University.
"People find ticks, ticks don't find people," he said. "And if you have a dog, dogs are like biological vacuum sweepers. They're going to find them."
In South Dakota, it seems people are used to ticks.
"We get calls every year about them," says Craig Rosenberg, a Minnehaha
County Extension educator. "We haven't had any more complaints this year than normal."
Although there are many varieties of ticks, the most common around here is the
American dog tick, the eight-legged brown creature about the size of a match head referred to by many people as a wood tick, Rosenberg says. Wood ticks carry some risk of disease, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
Black-legged ticks, better known as deer ticks, are reddish-brown and about the size of a pinhead. The Lone Star tick is similar in size and coloring to the dog tick, except females have a white "star" on their backs.
Deer ticks can transmit a serious bacterial infection called Lyme disease, while a much milder rash-related illness has been associated with the Lone Star tick. It is possible to contract Lyme disease in southeastern South Dakota, but it's much more likely in eastern Minnesota and Wisconsin, Rosenberg says, because the area is more heavily wooded.

Regardless of the type of tick, pay attention to the area of skin surrounding the bite.
"If you notice a rash developing or get any flulike symptoms, call a physician or one of the nurse information lines," Rosenberg says. "Tick-borne illnesses can be treated, but it's better to do it early on rather than later."
To survive, ticks have to live in an area where the humidity is 75 percent or above, Holscher says. That's why they are so common in tall grass and wooded, shady areas and scarce in closely mowed, treeless, suburban lawns.
Ticks are more prevalent early in the summer. "They don't like it too hot,"
Rosenberg says. "They'll retreat into deeper shade when it starts to really get hot. But in the wooded areas, you can pick them up anytime since it's cooler in the deep shade."
Ticks live on the ground
Contrary to accepted wisdom, ticks do not live in trees, and they do not drop on your head as you walk by, Holscher says.
"If you have a tick attached to the top of your head, it started at your legs and crawled all the way up until it got to that point," he says.
Tikcs live on the ground, moving as little as possible to conserve energy as they wait for a host to pass. When a tick senses a host is near, Holscher said, it crawls to the top of a blade of grass and hangs there, hoping the animal or human brushes against it as it walks by.
The best way to avoid ticks is to stay out of their habitat, Holscher says. The repellent Permanone is effective, he says, but you may have to go to a specialty sporting goods store to find it.
Dressing appropriately is the best defense: Wear long pants, long socks and lace-up boots or tennis shoes. "Stick your pant leg into your boots or socks,"
Holscher suggests.
Feeding time
It usually takes ticks about a day to work their mouth parts under the skin and begin feeding, he says. "Ticks do regurgitative feeding," Holscher says. "The female tick inserts her mouth parts, sucks in some blood, but she only wants the red blood cells so she'll spit the rest back in. That's why if you take a tick off you and smash it, you don't get bright red blood, you get a thick chocolate-looking blood. It's packed with red blood cells."

To remove ticks attached to the skin, Holscher suggests grabbing them near the mouth parts with a pointed pair of tweezers. Regardless of what your mother may have told you, whether or not you get the entire head isn't really that important, he says.
"I don't know why people go nuts over that," Holscher says. "Even if you snap the mouth parts off, they're not going to do anything. It's just like a splinter under the skin."
Once the tick is removed, Holscher generally sticks it to masking tape, wads the tape in a ball and puts it in the trash.
If you're concerned it could be a deer tick, stick it to the masking tape and then put it in the freezer. That way, he says, if you develop a "bull's-eye" rash or flu - early symptoms of Lyme disease - you can always take the tick in and get it typed.