One of the neatest handouts I've ever received at an OWL meeting is the wallet-sized reference guide to the three common tick species in New Jersey that Sean Healy distributed at our September meeting. It is small enough to carry in your pocket while hiking, hunting, fishing or birding yet contains a physical description of each species, color illustrations representing their actual and enlarged sizes and a synopsis of each tick.

This handy guide along with other literature (printed by the Monmouth County Mosquito Commission) plus slides, supplemented the presentation Sean gave on the black-legged, the lone star and the American dog tick species, the months in which they are most active and the diseases they transmit.

By way of background, he explained that all the species of ticks discussed go through four stages of development: egg, larva, nymph and adult. One of the facts that he shared that stands out in my mind is that they take a blood meal between each stage of growth.

The deer tick has a 2-year life cycle. During the summer of its first year, the egg hatches into a larva and prior to becoming dormant during the winter, it takes its first blood meal, usually attaching to a white-footed mouse. The larva then metamorphoses into a nymph and wakes the following spring. A nymph is most active during June through August taking another blood meal and molting into the adult stage early in the fall. An adult can be active throughout the winter. The following spring those females that have not acquired a blood meal over the winter attach to a large mammal, usually deer, and after feeding for 7-10 days, will fall to the ground and lay approximately 3000 eggs before dying.

It is important to note that the bacterium responsible for Lyme disease is not efficiently transmitted to the eggs. In addition to Lyme disease, the blacklegged tick can carry also transmit human babesiosis, which is a malarial like disease whose symptoms include fever, chills, headache, muscle spasms, fatigue and anemia. Babesiosis is successfully treated with an anti-malarial drug such as quinine. The blacklegged tick also carries human granulocytic anaplasmosis, a bacterial disease that causes severe headache, joint pain, and muscle ache that is treated with an antibiotic.

The lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) female is reddish brown in color with a white spot in the center of its roundish shaped body. According to Sean it is aggressive and considered to be a hunting tick because of its propensity to move toward heat and carbon dioxide in search of a host rather than passively waiting to latch on to one. He said that central New Jersey marks the northern extent of significant populations of this species; they also range from Maine to Florida and westward to Texas. They tend to be quite abundant and their preferred hosts are larger animals rather than smaller rodents or mammals.

Nymphs (who are most active in June) prefer to attach to the back of the head or ear of their hosts. The adults are most active in early spring and a single female can lay as many as 8000 eggs before she dies. They are responsible for transmitting human monocytic ehrlichiosos (a bacterial disease accompanied by fever, headache, joint pain and muscle ache which is readily treated with an antibiotic), tularemia ("rabbit fever") that produces headache, dizziness and fatigue and also treated with an antibiotic and STARI (Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness), which is caused by a not, yet identified bacterium.

When asked how he protects himself from ticks out in the field, Sean replied that he wears a jumpsuit and boots coated with permethrin (an insect repellent). He suggested several precautions that we can take to avoid becoming a host to ticks: Avoid areas and vegetation where ticks are likely to be located. When in the field or woods, wear white or light colored pants tucked into socks. Apply an insect repellent containing DEET to exposed skin and clothes. Check yourself thoroughly after being out of doors. Remove a tick as soon as it is discovered. Using a tweezers, pull with a firm grip as close to skins as possible. Treat as a splinter if some of the mouth parts are left in. Sean also suggested the use of duct tape to remove large numbers of ticks and brought a piece that he had used for this purpose which was clearly was covered with hundreds of lone star tick larvae.

Sean is an Entomologist with the Monmouth County Mosquito Commission and Visiting Scientist at the Center for Vector Biology, Department of Entomology at Rutgers where he conducts research on ticks and mosquitoes, the diseases they transmit, and ways to help control them. We certainly appreciate him for taking the time to come to our meeting and sharing his knowledge with us. Thanks again, Sean!

-- Sandy Norman

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