Shreveport Times, LA
06-15-07
Ticks don't find people; people find the ticks
By Mary Challender
Is your scalp crawling?
If not, you probably haven't spent much time outdoors recently. In some areas of
the country spring rains and warmer weather have produced a bumper crop of
ticks.
As nice weather lures people into the woods for fishing or hikes, says Ken
Holscher, an associate professor in the entomology department at Iowa
State University, the more ticks make their presence noticed.
"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."
Although there are many varieties of ticks, the most common 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.
Black-legged ticks, better known as deer ticks, are more of a 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.
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 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.
Ticks 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 laceup 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.