The hills are alive … with silent, waiting ticks.
Their bites can transmit bacteria that cause Lyme disease, and other things that can make
us very sick.
Protected by these palps is a menacing mouth covered in hooks.
First she has to find a host.
She can sense animals like us by the carbon dioxide we give off.
She reaches out with her front legs.
Scientists call this questing.
It will use that claw to latch onto something … like your sleeve.
Now you see her, now you don’t.
Once aboard, she searches out a nice spot to bite into … for blood.
She lives three years, but in that time she only eats three meals.
A tick needs enough blood to grow from larva to nymph, nymph to adult, and then for females
to lay their eggs.
Gross.
Let’s check out a nymph, a young tick.
It’s tiny, smaller than a freckle.
To grow into an adult, it needs one blood meal, a big one.
The front of its body is all mouth.
It digs into us using two sets of hooks.
The hooks wriggle into the skin.
They pull our flesh out of the way and push in this mouthpart: the hypostome.
Those hooks anchor the tick to us for the long haul, like mini-harpoons.
While the speedy mosquito digs in, sucks our blood and splits, all within seconds, a tick
nymph stays on for days.
Three days, if we don’t find it before then.
Compounds in their saliva help blood pool under the surface of our skin.
The nymph sips it through its mouthparts, like drinking from a straw.
When a tick is full – and I mean completely full – it falls off wherever it may be.
Maybe onto your bed.
That’s if you don’t nab it first.
You might have heard that you should twist or burn the tick.
Not true.
Grab the tick close to your skin and just pull straight out.
That’s how you win the fight against those tenacious hooks.
Hey!
I'm health reporter Laura Klivans, standing in for Lauren til the summer.
This biologist from the California Department of Public Health is collecting ticks in Berkeley.
At this park, only 1 percent of the ticks carry Lyme bacteria.
But in some places, 40 percent can be infected.
So make sure to do a thorough tick check after you go hiking.
And when you’re done, check that you’ve subscribed to Deep Look.
Happy trails!