Community Contributors: Now that's a lot of ticks!

It is tick season folks.  And nothing reminds us of this more than all your help reporting on tick activity and collecting specimens.

Earlier this week we received a photo from a Carlton County contributor who sent us this photo:

Photo by E. Felien, June 2020

Each little black speck represents a tick, the whole bunch was collected over the course of a week.  Not all of them are the species responsible for transmitting Lyme disease, Ixodes scapularis (deer ticks), but other species of ticks can also spread various diseases.

So please, when enjoying the great outdoors, protect yourselves from tick bites, and when you do encounter ticks, let us know!

You can self report tick encounters at on our Tick Risk Story Map website (here) and then send us your specimens at: 

University of Minnesota Duluth

Ixodes Outreach Project

1035 University Dr.

Duluth, MN  55812

Attn: SMed 332

When submitting a specimen please include the following information:

Date found

Whether it had been attached to a human or animal or found unattached

Location where the tick was likely picked up

Optional: your name, mailing address and email address for follow up correspondence

Ideally, ticks are best preserved if they are stored in a Ziploc bag or small, airtight container with a dab of hand sanitizer gel to coat the tick.  However, ticks that have dried out can still be useful to our research.  When mailing, please keep in mind that a small baggie can usually be sent without extra postage and handling, however, sending tubes or rigid containers of ticks requires mailing specimens to us in a box to avoid damage.

Should you be interested, we would be happy to send you a Tick Kit with additional information, tick collection and submission information and a tick removal key.  Kindly send your mailing address and we will get a kit out in the mail to you.

Check out our Ixodes Outreach Project Story Map Website:  http://z.umn.edu/Ixodes

-photos and text by C. Fisher

Notes from our crew: Why isn’t there a human vaccine for Lyme disease?

This post is prepared by Zoe Quinn, a volunteer undergraduate researcher.

While there are plenty of preventative treatments like vaccines for our furry friends, you may be asking yourself why there are not more options for yourself. The current available methods for human prevention include reducing exposure to ticks or treatment after a suspected tick bite. What about a vaccine? In fact, in 1998 there used to be a Lyme vaccine called LYMErix. Since then, this product has been pulled from the market due to reports of adverse reactions which resulted in a lawsuit and a large decrease in vaccine sales. Despite the claims of adverse reactions, the FDA determined that there was no causative association between the vaccine and the reactions. Fortunately, there is a new vaccine called VLA15 that has been created by a company called Valneva. It’s currently being tested and interim Phase 2 data should be expected mid-2020!

Read more about this topic through the National Library of Medicine:

Nigrovic, L. E., & Thompson, K. M. (2006). The Lyme vaccine: a cautionary tale. Epidemiology & Infection, 135(1), 1–8. doi: 10.1017/s0950268806007096

See Valneva’s website for updates about VLA15

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