Within 5 to 30 minutes of biting, a hard tick begins secreting a glycine-rich saliva that hardens around its mouthparts into a cement cone. Combined with the backward-pointing barbs of the hypostome, the cone glues the tick into the skin so firmly that pulling it off can take a small flake of dermis with it.
Hard ticks (Ixodidae) take one large blood meal per life stage and stay attached for days. Soft ticks (Argasidae), including Ornithodoros,…
Hard ticks find hosts by questing: climbing onto grass blades or low vegetation, anchoring with the back legs, and waving the front legs…
A removed tick is not biologically dead the moment you take it out - it can survive in a sealed container for weeks. CDC recommends…
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…
An attached tick's level of engorgement is the most useful proxy for how long it has been feeding. A flat, unengorged tick is probably…
Tick saliva contains hundreds of pharmacologically active proteins that suppress the host's immune response, dilate blood vessels, prevent…