Ticks find hosts using Haller's organ, a sensory pit on the tarsus of each foreleg. It carries chemoreceptors tuned to ammonia, carbon dioxide, and host odors, plus thermoreceptors for body heat. A questing tick holds its forelegs up like antennae, sampling the air for a passing mammal.
Hard ticks find hosts by questing: climbing onto grass blades or low vegetation, anchoring with the back legs, and waving the front legs…
Questing hard ticks always climb upward when they catch a host. After they latch onto a pant leg they crawl steadily up until they reach…
DEET does not poison ticks; it makes a host harder to find. The compound interferes with chemosensory neurons that respond to…
Amblyomma americanum, the lone star tick, is named for the single white spot on the female's scutum. Unlike Ixodes ticks, which sit and…
Within 5 to 30 minutes of biting, a hard tick begins secreting a glycine-rich saliva that hardens around its mouthparts into a cement…
Inside an unfed tick's midgut Borrelia burgdorferi expresses outer surface protein A, which lets it adhere to gut tissue. Once the tick…