In many parts of the United States, ticks and tick-borne diseases are a growing concern for gardeners and others who enjoy spending time outdoors. To explain what’s important to understand about these blood-sucking arachnids and the threat they pose, tick expert Dr. Thomas Mather (a.k.a “The TickGuy”) joins me on the podcast this week.
Thomas is a University of Rhode Island entomologist and has been studying ticks for four decades. He also runs TickEncounter, a URI initiative and resource center that promotes tick-bite protection and tick-borne disease prevention by engaging, educating and empowering people to take action.
Dr. Thomas Mather (a.k.a “The TickGuy”) is a University of Rhode Island entomologist. Photo Credit: TickEncounter/University of Rhode Island
Over the past 42 years, his research and outreach has focused on a wide variety of tick-borne disease ecology and prevention topics, including reservoir potential assessments, host-targeted and area-wide tick control strategies, anti-tick vaccine development, and crowd-sourced tick encounter surveillance.
While ticks are most associated with Lyme disease, Thomas raises awareness of the fact that there are various species of tick, and each is a vector for various illnesses that can be just as serious as Lyme.
The Origin of ‘The TickGuy’
Thomas studied a mosquito-borne virus to earn his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. For his next move, he decided to study this “new-fangled thing called Lyme disease” at the Harvard School of Public Health.
“ That was 1983, and they had just identified the causative germ that causes Lyme disease at that time,” he recalls. “And pretty much everything that needed to be known about the tick and the germ and everything was just open game. So it was great for a young scientist to really just dig in and do stuff.”
They had successes uncovering the mysteries about where the germ comes from.
TickEncounter
“We have a lot of programs associated with TickEncounter that, hopefully, people find helpful,” Thomas says.
This includes TickSpotters, where people can send in a photo of a tick for identification.
“We’ll get back to you about what kind of tick it is, because I know there are a lot of people that are challenged by identifying their ticks,” Thomas says.
He notes that when identifying a tick, it’s important to look at the top side.
“A third of the people are probably looking at the wrong side of the tick because they send their picture in to TickSpotters, and it’s the underside of the tick,” he says. “And all of the cool markings that ticks have that pretty much flash, ‘This is what kind of tick I am,’ is on the top side.”
TickSmart offers strategies for preventing tick bites, and an interactive map shares which species of tick are active where, and at what stage of life.
This is how tiny a tick nymph can be, demonstrating why they are so hard to detect.
Getty Images
Different Ticks, Different Illnesses
Two-thirds of the ticks that people encounter across America are ticks that don’t transmit the Lyme disease germ, yet everybody associates Lyme disease with ticks, Thomas points out.
“Different types of ticks transmit different types of germs, and so if you know what kind of tick it is, you know what germs you might get,” he says.
Blacklegged ticks (also known as deer ticks) transmit the Borrelia bacteria that causes Lyme disease. They can also transmit Babesia, Anaplasma, relapsing fever and Powassan virus. A blacklegged tick must be attached to a host for more than 24 hours to transmit Lyme disease, but other diseases may be transmitted in less time. The Powassan virus, for instance, can be transmitted right away upon a bite. But, fortunately, Powassan is carried by less than 1% of blacklegged ticks.
A red, expanding “bullseye” rash around a tick bite is a sign that a blacklegged tick passed on Lyme disease.
“The tick bite is inflammation because of the stuff that the tick was spitting in,” Thomas explains. “The Lyme disease bullseye rash is because the bacteria, which are also foreign to your body, are replicating in your skin, and they’re moving out sort of in concentric waves from where they were delivered at the tick bite.”
If you see a bullseye rash, go see a doctor. If you have the tick, bring it to the doctor to possibly be lab tested for Lyme. Symptoms can take five to seven days to appear, and not everyone who is infected with Lyme disease gets a bullseye rash.
Lone star ticks are associated with STARI (Southern tick-associated rash illness) and Alpha-gal syndrome, which causes an allergy to red meat and meat byproducts like gelatin. Alpha-gal syndrome is not an infection but rather a bodily response to a sugar found in lone star tick saliva.
American dog ticks can transmit Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
Rocky Mountain wood ticks can transmit Colorado tick fever virus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Their saliva contains a neurotoxin that can occasionally cause tick paralysis in humans and pets.
Gulf Coast ticks can transmit Rickettsia parkeri.
Longhorn ticks like to bite deer, dogs and livestock but aren’t very attracted to humans.
Image courtesy of TickEncounter/University of Rhode Island
Ticks and Deer
Thomas calls deer “tick-reproduction magnets.”
“White-tailed deer serve as the principal reproductive host for the blood meal that the adult stage blacklegged ticks, lone star ticks, Gulf Coast ticks need in order to lay thousands of eggs,” he says.
So naturally, the spread and growth of deer populations is associated with a greater prevalence of ticks.
“Increasingly, white-tailed deer are moving into peri-urban spaces,” he says. “It’s not just in the woods anymore. It’s in parklands, even in major metropolitan areas that these deer are coming.”
Ticks like to bite deer on their heads and around their ears, where the skin is the thinnest and most vascular, for an easy blood meal. Image courtesy of Getty Images
Cold Winters Do Not Wipe Out Ticks
Thomas says it’s a fallacy that a cold winter has an impact on tick populations.
“These ticks have probably been here since the Ice Age, and so they’ve figured out how to get through the winter and come out strong the next year,” he says.
Dry weather has more of an effect on tick populations, as blacklegged ticks in particular dry out and die.
Don’t just check yourself for ticks when you come in from outdoors. Check pets too.
Getty Images
Tick-Bite Prevention: Tucking, Treating and Tight
There are a number of ways gardeners can protect themselves from tick bites, starting with what they wear in the garden. Think closed-toed footwear instead of sandals, pants or leggings instead of shorts, and gloves instead of bare hands. And tuck shirts into pants and pants legs into socks to close gaps that ticks will take advantage of.
“The first thing is you need to put barriers to the ticks finding your skin,” Thomas says. “And so think about your feet, your knees and your hands. Those are the things that probably are going down on the ground. And the good news is that adult-stage ticks tend to be about a foot off of the ground when they get on you, and they’re bigger. What really is the problem are the nymphal-stage ticks.”
All tick species come in small (larvae), medium (nymphs) and large (adult) size.
“We’re worried about the nymphs because the larvae hatch out of eggs mostly free of germs. But the nymphs, if they’ve taken a blood meal from an infected reservoir as a larva, will be infected and carry that germ. So the nymphs are what we really are concerned about.”
The nymphs of a blacklegged tick are literally the size of a poppy seed, he points out. That makes them very difficult to detect.
In addition to wearing the right clothing, apply permethrin to shoes, socks and gardening gloves. Permethrin is a synthetic pyrethroid insecticide widely used to kill and repel ticks and mosquitoes. It also stays on clothing through several washes. DEET is a bug repellent that can deter ticks but needs to be reapplied frequently.
“That would serve as a really effective barrier for ticks latching on because they just don’t like that permethrin,” Thomas says.
He also recommends tight-fitting clothing. It’s better than baggy clothes that ticks can crawl under.
Ticks look for where the skin is thinnest and more vascularized, like around the head, for the easiest blood meal, Thomas notes. But people often find ticks have attached themselves where their clothing is restricting the tick’s movement, like the back of the knee or the waistband.
DEET needs to be reapplied frequently to be effective. Long pants and permethrin are safer bets. Alamy Stock Photo
Tick Removal
Removing a tick safely requires patience and caution.
Think of a tick like a juice pouch, Thomas says. When you stick the straw in, the juice shoots out if you’re squeezing the bag. A tick is like a bag of germs. If you squeeze it while it’s still attached, it will squirt germs into your body.
“If you hold the top of a tick close to the skin, you’re not squeezing the stuff from the back,” he explains.
Needle-nose tweezers are best for tick removal because they can get right along the skin without squeezing the whole tick.
Tick mouthparts have backward-pointing barbs, like a fishhook, so once it goes into skin, it wants to stay in. If not removed, it will stay there for four or five days to collect its blood meal. Then it will secrete something in its saliva that will soften up the tissue so it can detach itself.
Thomas does not advise touching a tick with a hot object to get it to pop off or attempting to suffocate it with Vaseline. Pointy tweezers are the way to go.
Once a deer tick attached itself to skin, it won’t let go until it’s had its fill of blood.
Getty Images
How to Make a Yard Less Inviting to Ticks
Short grass stays drier, which ticks don’t like. Leaf layers hold moisture, so raking leaves out of the way of where people walk and spend time reduces their exposure to ticks.
Ticks are often found in tall grass and brush. Getty Images
If you haven’t listened to my conversation with “The TickGuy” Dr. Thomas Mather on ticks and tick bite prevention, you can do so now by scrolling to the top of the page and clicking the Play icon in the green bar under the page title.
How do you protect yourself from ticks? Let us know in the comments below.
Links & Resources
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joegardener Online Gardening Academy Beginning Gardener Fundamentals: Essential principles to know to create a thriving garden.
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joegardener Online Gardening Academy Perfect Soil Recipe Master Class: Learn how to create the perfect soil environment for thriving plants.
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