The Urban Pantheist

After a short walk through my suburban neighborhood--including a wooded easement next to a cemetery--I sat in my kitchen texting my wife. Suddenly the eight-legged silhouette of the pictured animal crossed the backlit screen. It appeared that I was the next step of the journey for a "questing" blacklegged tick Ixodes scapularis (more popularly called a deer tick).

Previous to crawling on me, she had crawled to the edge of the twig of a shrub, reaching (questing) with her front legs, smelling the carbon dioxide I was emitting, and sensing my body heat. Previous to that she had endured the long winter, possibly under the seven feet of snow, under a warm decomposing layer of leaf litter. She may have just recently become an adult--not long ago she was a tiny nymph the size of a poppy seed, clinging to the creature that provided the meal that allowed her to grow and shed her exoskeleton.

We don't know what creature it was that served as her past home and meal ticket, but we know it was warm blooded. Chances are very good that it was a white footed mouse, in which case she was also very likely to be carrying the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, Babesiosis, or Anaplasmosis. If as a nymph she fed on a white tailed deer--less likely, since nymphs tend to stay low and feed on smaller creatures--then she would be rather more unlikely to carry these pathogens, especially Lyme disease. If her previous host was an opossum, she would have been among the lucky 10 percent that made it past the North American marsupial's diligent groom-and-eat regimen.

Females are identifiable by the large amount of red colored body not covered by the scutum, or dorsal shield. The scutum provides protection, but also is inelastic, and these blood-feeders need to be able to expand their body to accumulate the massive meal they need to produce their eggs. Males take smaller meals and are more fully covered by the scutum, making them look smaller and darker.

After I took this picture I removed this tick from the food web--they are an overabundant species causing serious human and animal health problems. I also reported it to TickEncounter.com like a good citizen scientist.

This is my favorite picture from today's Urban Nature Walk in Forest Park, a huge city park in the third largest city in Massachusetts, Springfield. I grew up two towns away from here, but had never explored it quite like this. Here's my favorite picture from the walk, from about halfway through. But let's see how we got there!

( lots and lots of photos )

A great walk! If you'd like to get in on the action go here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/68443835849/

Today was a crisp windy chilly October day, so we put up our hoods and went to Cutler Park.
( Come with us! )

On Sunday we went to Elm Bank Reservation, in Wellesley Mass (Just outside of the rt. 95 loop that more or less defines the perimeter of Metro Boston). It's a collection of formerly privately held land that has been set aside to be used as open space. The Massachusetts Horticultural Society has buildings and greenhouses there, there are soccer fields and canoe landings, but a lot of it just looks like forest. Here Alexis stands among some impressive white pines.( Read more... )

Urban species#036: Deer tick Ixodes dammini scapularis
Location: Photographs taken at home, Brookline. Tick acquired in Olmsted Park, Boston.

Ticks aren't usually thought of as urban species. Most people may never encounter a tick while in the city. However, dog owners will find them--or the ticks will find the dog owners. Deer ticks don't feed only on deer. Their babies (or "nymphs") are parasites of white-footed mice (a species that is found in the city) as well as urban birds such as American robins, blue jays; adults feed on raccoons, opossums, and squirrels, and of course, dogs and humans. Deer ticks can carry the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, which is very serious but treatable if caught early. Deer ticks can be distinguished from the other common urban tick, the dog tick, by size: deer ticks are about the size of a sesame seed, dog ticks are twice as large.

Yes, I pulled this tick off of myself today. Ticks are active of winter days when the ground temperature is 45 degrees f, or higher.

( Image of deer tick feeding on human host, behind cut. )