The Soft Tick
Instead of questing, a typical soft tick takes up residence in the burrow or nest of a mammal, bird, reptile or amphibian, waiting for the opportunity to clamber on to a host. Characteristically, said Vredevoe, “Soft ticks feed for short periods of time on their hosts, varying from several minutes to days, depending on such factors as life stage, host type, and species of tick.” It may increase its body weight by five to ten times. Unlike a hard tick, the adult soft tick feeds and reproduces repeatedly. The female may lay several dozen eggs after each meal.
Like the hard tick, a newly hatched soft tick larva has six legs. It takes a blood meal then molts, emerging as n eight-legged nymph. Unlike the hard tick, the soft tick passes through several nymphal stages, feeding repeatedly, growing and molting several times, until it develops into an eight-legged adult. A soft tick typically lives much longer than hard ticks. According to Vredevoe, “…many soft ticks have an uncanny resistance to starvation, and can survive for many years without a blood meal.”
Some Ticks of the Southwest
Our typical tick, which travels free to exotic places courtesy of its host, especially a large mammal or a migratory bird, can occupy a wide number of environments in the Southwest. It can belong to either the hard or soft tick families. It can represent any of a number of species. Depending on the species, it may be a vector for various serious diseases.
A member of the hard tick family, the Brown Dog Tick, for instance, with a nationwide distribution, appears to be the vector for canine ehrlichiosis rickettsia and canine babesiosis protozoa, both serious, and possibly, fatal diseases for your pet. According to Jan Hendricks and Bob Wilson, writing for the Internet site Ehrlichiosis: A Silent and Deadly Killer, ehrlichiosis rickettsia is a blood infection that depresses the immune system and destroys the lymphatic system and, ultimately, multiple organs. It leads to a number of symptoms such as intermittent fever, coughing, weakness, runny eyes, leathergy, arthritis and muscle wasting. Babesiosis protozoa, according to the Veterinary Partner Internet site, is another blood disorder, this one leading to fever, jaundice, weakness, reddish colored urine and, possibly, severe anemia. Both diseases, if caught and treated early, can possibly be cured.
Another hard tick, the Rocky Mountain Wood Tick, serves as a vector for Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which infects several hundred people across the Southwest in an average year, according to the Center for Disease Control Internet site. It causes a sudden onset of symptoms such as a severe rash, high fever, muscle aches, chills, headache, nausea and lethargy. Untreated, it can damage the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys.
One of the soft ticks, the Ornithodoros hermsi, can infect humans with tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF), a fairly unusual disease in the Southwest although a significant outbreak has occurred in the past on the north rim of Grand Canyon. According to an article “The Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Relapsing Fever in the United States,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine, its can cause symptoms such as a rash, a high fever, drenching sweats, accelerated heart beat, headaches, low back pain, and occasional nausea and vomiting. Reported in time, it usually responds to treatment with antibiotics, although it may recur.
Fortunately, a tick that carries Lyme disease – the most common tick-borne infectious disease in the United States – occurs infrequently in the desert Southwest. Especially severe, it produces the well-known rash that encircles the site of the bite. It can lead to long-lasting flu-like symptoms, hives, chronic arthritis, facial paralysis and even heart blockage, according to the General Pest Management site.
Precautions in the Field
If you explore the Southwest’s desert basins, waterways, canyons and forested mountain slopes – all places where ticks may occur – you should consider taking several precautions.
· First, check with the responsible federal, state or local agency about the risk of ticks in the area you plan to visit.
· Second, avoid low brushy areas, burrows, nests, abandoned structures and caves—all areas favored by ticks.
· Third, inspect your body and clothes a couple of times a day to make certain that a tick hasn’t targeted you for a host. If you can catch a tick before or soon after it has latched onto your skin, you can probably avoid contracting diseases it may carry. You have to look closely because a tick in the larval or nymphal stage may be very small.
· Fourth, inspect your pet, especially its head and ears, a couple of times a day. Dogs are 50 to 100 times more likely than humans to come in contact with disease-carrying ticks. Check your dog for ticks every day, especially during tick season: spring, summer and fall. Use a tick medications to prevent ticks on your dog
· Fifth, wear long, light-colored pants (possibly taped at the ankles) and a long-sleeved light-colored shirts, making access the tick’s dark presence on your clothes more obvious and its access to your body more difficult.
· Sixth, apply an insect repellent with DEET – an oily, colorless insect repellent – to your skin, and apply a permethrin formulation – a topical insecticide – to at least your shoes, socks and pants.
Click Here for a video on the Tick.
Tick Removal
Should you discover that, in spite of all precautions, a tick has still managed to bite you, attaching itself to your skin by it’s the barbs of its feeding tube and the glue from its salivary glands, you should remove it promptly, but very carefully.
- First, apply a dab of alcohol to the tick, which may withdraw its feeding tube if it has just started feeding.
- Second, if the tick refuses to withdraw, grasp it with tweezers as near the head as possible and pull it out slowly, hopefully with the mouthparts intact. Try not to squeeze the tick’s main body because that could force disease organisms into the wound.
- Third, should the mouthparts remain embedded in your skin, you should treat the bite with an antiseptic to prevent secondary infection.
- Fourth, preserve the tick in a bottle with alcohol or in a Ziploc bag or vial with a dampened cotton ball or cloth so it can be readily identified if necessary.
- Fifth, if you are in a high-risk area, you should get the tick identified promptly to determine whether it is a disease-carrying species.
- Sixth, in any event, should you experience any symptoms, for instance, a rash, within the next four weeks after the bite, you should seek medical attention. As the National Park Service says in its Public Health Information Sheet, Ticks and Disease, “Timely treatment is essential.”
A Question of Common Sense
While you should be aware of the risk of ticks and disease in the Southwest, you need not be overly concerned. Of all the people who explore the wilderness areas, relatively few experience tick bites and fewer still suffer tick-borne diseases. You can minimize the risk by taking some common-sense precautions and care to protect your family, your pets and yourself.
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