Adult blacklegged ticks, or deer ticks, are out in force, and more than half carry the germ for Lyme disease
If you’re a hiker or just love the outdoors, fall is
probably your favorite season. Temperatures are cooler but still warm enough,
days are still long, and for the most part, bugs are less of a pest.
Don't be like this guy who says he gets bit up to
60 times a year
But
as you get ready to head out, University of Rhode Island entomologist Tom
Mather wants you to know something: This is also the season for adult
blacklegged ticks, or deer ticks. They’re exploding on the scene and more than
50% carry the germ for Lyme disease. But luckily, unlike in the tick’s nymph
stage, the adults are large enough to see.
“What people need to remember is there’s a seasonality to most of nature, including ticks,” says Mather, director of the Center for Vector-Borne Disease and the TickEncounter Resource Center.
“Every type of tick has a slightly different season. In this case – adult
blacklegged ticks – their season is October and November. That’s when they
first come out. They’re at their freshest and their hungriest.”
Mather,
aka the TickGuy, is a veteran of almost four decades of hunting and researching
ticks, and educating and helping the public protect itself from the blood
suckers. But, he says, many people mistakenly think tick season ends when fall
hits.
“Most people are quite surprised,” he says. “You could do a survey: Most people think ticks die when it gets cold. It’s a surprise that October and November are actually the fifth and sixth ‘tickiest’ months of the year.”
The
tick situation in Rhode Island and New England this year has been moderate,
Mather says. Summer’s drought probably curtailed nymph-stage ticks and may have
prevented many of them from getting the blood meal ticks need at each stage of
their lifecycle (larva, nymph and adult).
“That
could mean there will be fewer adult stage ticks. But we’ve been surprised
in the past,” he says. “I struggled at many of my regular sites to find nymphs
this year. But there were a few sites, especially along the south coast, that had
an exceptional number of nymph ticks.”
Adult
blacklegged ticks are just now starting to become active in Rhode Island, in
just the past week, crowdsourced reports of adult deer ticks have come from
Ontario, Vermont, Massachusetts and West Virginia, according to data collected
from the TickEncounter’s TickSpotters program. TickSpotters allows
people from all over to upload photos of ticks that they’ve picked off
themselves or their pets and get a quick tick ID check and a risk assessment,
while the crowdsourced information provides data to assess tick population
trends.
“The
first one we got through TickSpotters was Sept. 23 from way up in Vermont,”
Mather says. “We haven’t seen any in Rhode Island just yet, but I’m sure
they’ll start coming any day now.”
While
there are about nine species of ticks encountered in Rhode Island, and across
the U.S., the most prevalent are blacklegged ticks (or deer ticks), lone star
ticks and American dog ticks. Their lifecycles overlap somewhat, with stages of
each most active at different times.
For
example, May, the “tickiest” month of the year, has the greatest diversity of
ticks. Adult deer ticks that didn’t feed in the fall may still be active, along
with deer tick nymphs, and adult dog ticks and lone star ticks being most
active. Lone star tick nymphs are also around in May. But their seasons
come to an end. Late August and September are pretty quiet when it comes to
ticks, and that lulls people into thinking tick “season” is over, Mather says.
But
then–WHAM. By October, it’s mainly adult blacklegged ticks that people have to
worry about. About 85% of TickSpotters’ submissions from around the country
during October and November are for adult blacklegged ticks.
And
those adult deer ticks you encounter in your trek through the woods started
their lifecycle in spring of 2021. The larvae hatched that June – from eggs
laid by adult ticks that fed the previous fall and that survived through the
winter. After being active in July and August, the larvae detached from their
host, made it through the winter and became nymphs this past spring.
Nymphs
fed in May, June or July, detached, and through a process called molting,
transformed into this fall’s adults. One out of two (or more) adult stage deer
ticks carry the germ for Lyme disease – compared with about one in four of the
nymph-stage deer ticks earlier in the year. The reason is, the adult stage has
had two opportunities to feed and pick up the germs for Lyme from rodents,
mainly white-footed mice. They can also pick up germs for babesiosis,
anaplasmosis, a relapsing fever disease, and Powassan virus.
Adult
blacklegged ticks will be active this fall until the temperature stays
consistently cold – not disappearing at the first hard frost. The first frost
usually comes between Oct. 10 and 20, says Mather, and after that the numbers
of adult ticks actually soar until about Thanksgiving.
“By
then, it’s getting routinely cold enough to keep them from being active,” he
adds. “It has to be sustainably cold because if it is below freezing overnight
but 40 degrees the next day, these ticks will be out.”
Until
the cold weather sets in to stay, the center’s TickSmart webpage has
numerous ways to help you and your pet stay safe from ticks – including how to
prepare to go out into nature, what to do after to check for ticks, and how to
remove them.
Along
with the website, TickEncounter is taking prevention to the woods to give you
on-the-spot tips, or “just-in-time” learning, as Mather calls it. Starting in
the summer, about 400 signs – “Warning: Tick Habitat” – have been distributed
and posted at trailheads. Signs have gone up at Rhode Island Land Trust trails
and in communities such as North Kingstown and South Kingstown.
The
signs have a QR code to give people venturing into nature immediate information
– such as three things they can do right there at the trailhead to reduce their
chances of bringing home a tick. (There are also stickers being distributed
that provide a QR code with tips to protect your pets.)
“You
can have tick expert advice ‘just in time’ telling you exactly what you
probably need to know right now – if you just scan the code,” Mather says.
Get
more information about TickEncounter’s newest campaign and “Be Ready For Ticks”
when you step outside this fall.