100 Species #62: American dog tick.

[urbpan]

This adult male American dog tick Dermacentor variablis came into the yard on one of our dogs. We have picked several off of both dogs this year.

American dog ticks overwinter in the soil and emerge in Massachusetts in April, looking for a mammal to feed on. Dog owners often express relief when they find a dog tick--at least it wasn't a deer tick! Dog ticks don't carry the organism that cause Lyme disease, though they do carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever and tularemia. They are also much larger than deer ticks and therefore easier to find. Dog tick (also called wood ticks) can live on almost any medium-sized to large mammal, and must feed on three different hosts as they grow to adulthood.

This is our preferred tool to remove attached ticks: http://www.tickinfo.com/protickremedy.htm

The American dog tick appeared in this blog before as #365 Urban Species #146.

Comments

[dinahprincedaly.livejournal.com]

ticks are bad bad bad this year... my daughter's friend who battled lyme last year already texted her she's got the first bullseye bite of the year ALREADY... and I thought our horrendous winter would have knocked them back some

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I suspect that our two consecutive big acorn years increased the population of larva and nymph deer tick hosts--white footed mice and chipmunks--which increased the numbers of deer ticks. We tend to get the most deer ticks (on us and the dogs) on warmish (40s) winter days, while the dog ticks wait until spring.

[dinahprincedaly.livejournal.com]

hmmmm, never made that correlation... but duh! we have a serious mouse problem in CT (set six traps in the laundry room, caught six mice) and acorns like never ever before this year, its insane and I don't know what to DO with them all

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Ticks! ARgh. Kill! Kill! Alas, my dog died last year, so our problems with ticks are now much less since he's not there to bring them into the house. However, it's the accursed teensy deer tick that causes so many problems :(