Tick circle of life

To help us better understand the Lyme disease transmission process, we need to study ticks.  This year we have managed to capture a live, fully engorged female Ixodes scapularis tick.  We have been monitoring the process of laying eggs.  A single female can lay as many as 2000 eggs.  Here is a photo of our specimen:

Engorged female Ixodes scapularis laying eggs (ruler in background shows mm markers).  Image by C Fisher, May 20, 2020

We are storing the tick in a brown bottle, which gives everything in our photo an amber-brown color.  The grape-like shape to the left is the engorged female tick, and he eggs are to the right of her head (the eggs have piled up and covered her head).  After laying all the eggs, the female dies.

It took approximately two weeks from the time the tick was caught until eggs began to appear.  Eggs seemed to be laid over the course of several days to a week.  

-C. Fisher, photos by C. Fisher

Ixodes Outreach Project Story Map is live!

Please check out version 1 of the Ixodes Outreach Project Story Map Website.  We are inviting the community to assist us in creating a "tick bank" by submitting tick specimens to our research lab.  Each time a tick is submitted, a pin is placed on the map.  This way we can build a risk map of where ticks are active.  Over time we plan to test the specimens for pathogenic organisms, such as the bacteria that causes Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi) and others.

To read more about our research and this phase of our website, click here:

 

http://z.umn.edu/Ixodes

-C. Fisher

Ticks can spread other diseases besides Lyme

As we head into tick season, it is helpful to understand the risk behind tick bites.

In the Duluth area, black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) and dog ticks (Dermacentor variabilis) are the primary ticks likely to be encountered, and between these two there are as many as nine different tickborne diseases that could be spread through a tick bite.

The Minnesota Department of Health has excellent resources on tickborne diseases and tick bite prevention.

To read more, click here.

visit the MDH Tickborne diseases website

-C. Fisher

Ixodes Outreach Project "Tick Bank" makes the KBJR-TV News!

See this news release from UMD by clicking here.

 

To watch the KBJR-TV 6 news story click here: 

To visit or Risk Story Map referred to in the news release, click here.

Remember Fido during peak tick season!

I pulled this slightly engorged female Ixodes scapularis off my dog on Tuesday, May 5th.  It had probably been attached since Sunday when I was out at my partner's farm in Carlton County, Minnesota.  This photo shows us how much a female tick can swell after approximately 36-48 hours of feeding.

 I.scapularis, adult female, slightly engorged

The ruler scale is in cm

This serves as a good reminder that it was time to repeat the dosage of my monthly tick prevention on our dogs.  You should check with your veterinarian to discuss the best method of tick prevention for your pet.  A variety of topical and oral treatments are available.

-C. Fisher, photo by C. Fisher