Ticks

wtg

The antibiotics worked for me, too. I guess others aren't so lucky. I read Russ Douthat's book about his case of Lyme. OMG, what a horror story.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/01/ross-douthats-wrenching-lyme-disease-battle/

wtg

More bad news re ticks.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/29/lone-star-ticks-increase-climate-crisis

ShiroKuro

That is terrifying. We found a bug in our entryway a week or so ago, it was big enough to be visible so I thought it was a spider, but looking at the photo of the lone star tick, I'm now sure it was a tick. It didn't have the marking so I assume it wasn't a lone star tick, but nevertheless.

Ugh. Very disconcerting!

ShiroKuro

This was what we found:

alt text

Sure looks like a tick to me.

Mik

Yep. That's a tick.

wtg

Free tick identification

https://www.ticklab.org/identify-my-tick

Not sure your photo is of sufficiently good quality, but you could give it a try.

ShiroKuro

@wtg said in Ticks:

Free tick identification

https://www.ticklab.org/identify-my-tick

Thanks!!

Not sure your photo is of sufficiently good quality,

It may not be, I think I took four photos and all of them are a bit on the blurry side. It was small enough that it was very hard to get a good photo and we didn’t want to let it get away, so I eventually gave up!

I will try sending it in though!

wtg

They identified the tick we found on the floor in the dining room in 2022 (I just looked it up!). As I recall they got back to me pretty quickly. It was a fully engorged American dog tick and it probably had latched onto Raffi when he was outside; there's no way it could have been on us without us noticing it. It was huge!

I didn't pay to have the tick tested (that lab offers the service) but we did take Raffi in and had a blood test done on him. He had no tick-borne diseases.

ShiroKuro

I sent it in, I'll report back!

ShiroKuro

Wow! That was fast!!!

The laboratory has identified the tick specimen as an adult female American dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis).

So what to make of that? (Given, among other things, that we don’t have dogs)

wtg

Well it means you have ticks in your yard. It might just be a stray, or it could be that this is a bad year for ticks in your area. Dog ticks prefer dogs but can latch on to humans. I think repellents work. In the woods I used to pull my socks over my pant legs.

https://momgoescamping.com/tick-types-pictures/

The university might have more info on how tick season is progressing in your area.

wtg

Things you can do, from WebMD:

https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/news/20250616/why-this-tick-season-is-worse-and-how-to-protect-yourself

CHAS

Keeping the grass short helps keep tick populations down. They cannot complete the life cycle with frequent mowing.

ShiroKuro

@wtg said in Ticks:

Well it means you have ticks in your yard.

Yes, and in our house, at least one

ShiroKuro

@CHAS said in Ticks:

Keeping the grass short helps keep tick populations down.

I wonder if our grass is short enough. We mow once a week and keep it just a touch long — I mean, it doesn’t look long but the deck isn’t on the shortest setting, doing it this way is supposed to help prevent non-grass weeds…

WTF-Beta

Ticks