About TICKS

Ticks are not insects like fleas or lice but belong to the class of arachnida like for example spiders or mites. The most easily seen features on ticks are the spiracular plates (or stigmata plates) which surround the external openings of the respiratory system. These plates are located just outside the bases of the third and fourth pair of legs. Ticks are common bloodsucking parasites that need to live on a host in order to survive. For feeding they will attach their harpoon-like barbs of their mouth to the host. They feed only on the blood of vertebrates (animals or human). As ticks are not able to jump on their host, but their only method of transportation is physical contact, they are often found on tall grass. Ticks have a very good organ of smell in their forelegs and are therefore able to exactly locate their host when approaching. The life cycle of ticks normally has four growth stages: egg, larvae, nymph and adult. In order to let the different metamorphosis take part, ticks need a host in order to get to their next stage of life. 

There are two major tick families: The hard ticks (Ixodidae) and the soft ticks (Argasidae). Like the name says, hard ticks have a thick outer shell and it is easy to see their head and mouthpart. A kind of shield covers most of the upper body surface of the male tick, but covers a lot smaller area on the female. When a female tick is engorged with blood, her abdomen can increase to many times its normal size. A male tick will never be able to reach a size that big. Hard ticks will stay attached to the skin of the host for up to 10 days and will able to suck an amount of blood up to 200 times of their own bodyweight. Most of the diseases like Lyme, TBE or babesiosis are carried by hard ticks.
Soft tick’s posses a membranous outer surface, their body shape is oval and the head and mouthparts are hidden underneath the body. Soft ticks mostly attach to birds or to rodents but they may also attach themselves to humans. Soft ticks typically live in crevices, rodent burrows and wall voids and only emerge briefly to feed. Diseases carried by soft ticks include for example HIV, malaria or the relapsing fever.