How much wood would a woodtick, tick

Jun 7, 2005 by Naomi.

Last week hikers on the McNary NWR trail were incensed about wood ticks found on their clothes . I don’t know exactly what the folks expected Refuge staff to do about them - pesticide them to Mars, I guess. I never thought of ticks as anything more than a pesky insect so I can’t understand all the fuss. I’ve had ticks find certain of my body parts particularly succulent and cozy. But they were easily brushed off and made to expire under a match flame. Anyway for the apartment dweller I decided some facts were in order. What I wanted was the genus, family, etc, with the health expectations to set folks at ease. Well, THAT I did not get.

It is no wonder people are paranoid about ticks. The Internet sources had nothing but dire warnings about life threatening diseases that lurked out there on those ugly bugs that would leap upon you with a vengeance as you passed. I resorted to Edwin B. Steen and his Dictionary of Biology.

A tick is a bloodsucking arachnid on the order Acarina comprising two families, the Argasidae which are soft ticks, and Ixodidae, which are hard ticks. The ones I picked out of my hair with a tad of my blood inside didn’t feel hard to me. The ones I captured before they dined were so flat they might be considered hard. I had to dig deeper into scientific brains for distinction on that score.

The family Argasidae includes the soft ticks which are transmitter infective agents of a number of serious fevers. In this group are the tiny deer ticks that might carry Lime disease. Boy, oh boy, I don’t want to mess with them. The family Ixodidae contains the hard ticks: Ixodes, Boophilus, Amblyomma, and Dermacentor. Somewhere in those impossible names are cattle ticks that transmit Texas fever. Wood ticks, sometimes called dog ticks, are pests and if left to snuggle into a warm private area they imbibe blood through their proboscis as if it was ambrosia. I suppose to them it is.

Wood ticks do seem to leap on you as you walk through the grass. But they do not target your skin and instantaneously drive a backhoe into an artery. They creep along to be easily found on your clothing. It is wise to wear light colored clothing to make sleuthing easier for you when you return from your walk. Pulling sock tops up over the hem of your pant legs prevents marauders from traveling nonstop to the warm moist nether lands of your private parts. Armpits and hairlines are favorites as well. Take precautions but don’t let fear overcome your good sense and spoil your intervention of nature.

Happy itching.

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