How does one get a tick...on purpose?

To commemorate reaching 25% of our goal (woohoo, thank you!), let's take a minute to talk tick collecting! Something we're sure you're just itching (heh) to learn about.

Finding a tick is something that most people never want to do. But there are those of us who, to better understand how to prevent people from getting bitten or sick from ticks, NEED to find ticks out in nature (a process known as active surveillance). Using what we know about tick biology and ecology, there are surprisingly several ways to do this - you've just got to think like a tick!

• Flagging/Dragging for ticks

Most ticks locate their next blood meal by just waiting patiently for their hosts to walk by. This works best by hanging out on top of leaf litter or at the tops of twigs and short shrub stems, where they can get back to protective coverings quickly should they need to rehydrate. A popular method of tick collecting is using a flannel flag (often white or pale in color to best see the ticks stuck to it), and dragging it along the forest floor. Ticks waiting for their next meal will latch on, thinking it's an animal brushing past. After walking a pre-determined distance, it's time to check the flag and store any found ticks in vials.

 

Collecting ticks from a flag after dragging.

• CO2 traps

Another way ticks sense their potential hosts is by being able to "smell" carbon dioxide. They will move toward the source of the "exhaled" gas, so researchers take advantage of this strategy and lure ticks into traps by baiting boxes or coolers with dry ice surrounded by a perimeter of sticky tape to catch them. If you're planning to hang out close by, you can forego the tape and just put the CO2 on top of a large piece of cloth or tarp so you can easily pick off the ticks as you see them bee-lining for what they think is a meal.

 

Carbon dioxide tick trap. Ticks are lured onto the white material by dry ice in the cooler and can be easily seen and collected.

• Catching animals that carry them

Small rodents like the white-footed mouse are a favorite host of many tick species, including the tick that carries Lyme disease, the blacklegged (or deer) tick. In fact, it's the MOUSE that gives the Lyme bacteria to the ticks in the first place. Because these animals are the targets of ticks, it can be helpful to catch mice in live-traps, and pick off the ticks since there's likely a lot of them.

 

Ticks will often collect around the eyes and ears of mice. Tick Tubes (cardboard tubes filled with permethrin-treated cotton) are a method used to reduce the number of ticks in backyards by offering up tick preventative-treated cotton balls to mice as nesting material. It's kind of like putting tick treatment on a dog or cat, and helps kill the ticks directly on the mice, without hurting the mice.

• Handpicking them off of vegetation

Our very own Dr. Mather has honed his vision over his career to be able to spot a sesame seed-sized tick on the tip of a bramble from seemingly a mile away. He plucks questing ticks off with fingers or pointy tweezers by the hundreds and tucks them away in vials.

Read more in an article by NPR Morning Edition: https://tickencounter.org/news/npr_someone_has_to_catch_ticks 

 

Photo credit: NPR

Now you know a little more about how active tick surveillance is conducted! Seems tedious, right? Next time we'll discuss more about PASSIVE surveillance -- or how we collect information on ticks by having the public send it to us. TickSpotters is a great example of this crowd-sourced citizen-science solution to studying ticks!

Thank you so much for reading, donating, and sharing. Please keep it up!