Feeding habits
Ticks are ectoparasites and consume blood to satisfy all of their nutritional requirements. They are obligate hematophages, and require blood to survive and move from one stage of life to another. Ticks can fast for long periods of time, but eventually die if unable to find a host.
Some ticks attach to their host rapidly, while others wander around looking for thinner skin, such as that in the ears of mammals. Depending on the species and life stage, preparing to feed can take from ten minutes to two hours. On locating a suitable feeding spot, the tick grasps the host’s skin and cuts into the surface. It extracts blood by cutting a hole in the host’s epidermis, into which it inserts its hypostome and prevents the blood from clotting by excreting an anticoagulant or platelet aggregation inhibitor.
Ticks find their hosts by detecting an animals’ breath and body odors, sensing body heat, moisture, or vibrations. A common misconception about ticks is they jump onto their host or they fall from trees, however, they are incapable of flying or jumping. Many tick species, particularly Ixodidae, lie in wait in a position known as “questing”. While questing, ticks cling to leaves and grasses by their third and fourth pairs of legs. They hold the first pair of legs outstretched, waiting to grasp and climb on to any passing host. Tick questing heights tend to be correlated with the size of the desired host; nymphs and small species tend to quest close to the ground, where they may encounter small mammalian or bird hosts; adults climb higher into the vegetation, where larger hosts may be encountered. Some species are hunters and lurk near places where hosts may rest. Upon receiving an olfactory stimulus or other environmental indication, they crawl or run across the intervening surface.
Ecology
A habitat preferred by ticks is the interface where a lawn meets the forest, or more generally, the ecotone, which is unmaintained transitional edge habitat between woodlands and open areas. Therefore, one tick management strategy is to remove leaf litter, brush, and weeds at the edge of the woods. Ticks like shady, moist leaf litter with an overstory of trees or shrubs and, in the spring, they deposit their eggs into such places allowing larvae to emerge in the fall and crawl into low-lying vegetation. The 3 meter boundary closest to the lawn’s edge are a tick migration zone, where 82% of tick nymphs in lawns are found.
For an ecosystem to support ticks, it must satisfy two requirements; the population density of host species in the area must be great enough and it must be humid enough for ticks to remain hydrated. Due to their role in transmitting Lyme disease, Ixodid ticks, particularly the North American I. scapularis, have been studied using geographic information systems to develop predictive models for ideal tick habitats. According to these studies, certain features of a given microclimate – such as sandy soil, hardwood trees, rivers, and the presence of deer – were determined to be good predictors of dense tick populations.
Tick-borne disease
Ticks are implicated in the transmission of a number of infections caused by pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. Occasionally, the tick harbors more than one type of pathogen, making diagnosis of the infection more difficult. Species of the bacterial genus Rickettsia are responsible for typhus, rickettsialpox, boutonneuse fever, African tick bite fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Flinders Island spotted fever, and Queensland tick typhus (Australian tick typhus).[72] Other tick-borne diseases include Lyme disease and Q fever, Colorado tick fever, Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever, tularemia, tick-borne relapsing fever, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, Bourbon virus, and tick-borne meningoencephalitis, as well as bovine anaplasmosis and the Heartland virus. In the United States and Europe, Lyme disease is the most commonly reported vector-borne disease in the country.
Population control measures
Researcher collecting ticks using the “tick dragging” method
With the possible exception of widespread DDT use in the Soviet Union, attempts to limit the population or distribution of disease-causing ticks have been quite unsuccessful. The parasitoid chalcid wasp Ixodiphagus hookeri has been investigated for its potential to control tick populations. It lays its eggs into ticks; the hatching wasps kill their hosts.
Predators and competitors of tick hosts can indirectly reduce the density of infected nymphs, thereby lowering tick-borne disease risk by lowering the density and/or tick burden of reservoir-competent hosts. A study in the Netherlands found that the number of larval ticks on bank voles and wood mice was lower at sites with significant red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and stone marten (Martes foina) activity.
This supports the results of a study from the northeastern United States, in which the incidence of Lyme borreliosis was negatively correlated with the density of red fox, possibly because foxes decrease the density of white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus), the most important reservoir-competent host for Borrelia burgdorferi.
Another natural form of control for ticks is the Helmeted Guineafowl, a bird species that consumes mass quantities of ticks. Opossums also are net destroyers of ticks, killing around ninety percent of the ticks that attempt to feed on them. More generally, high animal diversity has a strongly protective effect against tick-borne disease.
Topical tick medicines may be toxic to animals and humans. The synthetic pyrethroid insecticide phenothrin in combination with the hormone analogue methoprene was a popular topical flea and tick therapy for felines. Phenothrin kills adult ticks, while methoprene kills eggs. However, some products have been withdrawn, while others are known to cause adverse reactions.
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What you need to know about getting a tick bite
https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-to-know-about-tick-bites-4587783
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Videos
Articles
Australia – Tick Management in Cattle
The cattle tick is classified as a single-host tick because it lives its parasitic stages on one host. The time spent on the host is about 21 days. During this time the immature or nymphal stages feed on blood and gradually develop and grow. The female ticks engorge with blood then drop off onto pasture and lay up to 3000 eggs. The eggs hatch to release the larval stages which infest the next host. Larvae need to infect a new host or they will die and they are sensitive to climatic conditions of temperature and moisture but they can survive for up to two months in summer and as long as seven months in winter. Over wintering larvae are responsible for the rise in tick numbers in the following spring. It is important to note here are other tick species that affect cattle such as scrub or bush ticks and in some regions, paralysis ticks. It is important to be able to tell the difference between them because treatment and control can be different for the other types of ticks.
USA – Let’s Talk Ticks: What They Do To Livestock & How To Control Them
Ticks spread disease among humans, horses and cattle. Here are facts about these icky arthropods and how to protect yourself and your animals.
Australia – Procedure for eradicating cattle tick from infested land
India – CONTROL & MANAGEMENT OF TICK & FLY IN CATTLE
USA – HOW TO GET RID OF CATTLE TICKS
UK – The threat of tick-borne diseases in the United Kingdom
