"Well, dang. I found a tick..." Topic

I'm sitting in my office, glance down at my leg and notice a dark spot. I thought maybe it was a scab, but then I looked closer and discovered it was a tick! And it had bitten me!
I pulled it off (yes, the head came with it). It wasn't engorged, fortunately, so it hadn't been there long.

Looking at photos on the 'net, I think it's a larvae-stage dog tick; there's no elongated head as in a deer tick (whew), but at the same time, I really can't see any white markings, either.

To make this more exciting (okay, not all that exciting), I had it on a piece of paper, where it hadn't moved for a while. I would glance at it, read articles about ticks, glance back at it again, move on to another article, and so on… and then I glanced back and it was gone. Cue frantic search for the little brown beastie on my dark brown desktop! Never knew those things could move so fast. I finally spotted it scurrying across the light wood of my keyboard drawer and smushed it with a pen cap. To be sure, I put the now unmoving remains on another hard surface and cut it in half with a knife. Dead tick, now in trash.

I cleaned the bite spot with alcohol, so hopefully they'll be no infection problems.

The odd thing is, I can't figure where I picked this up. I haven't been in woods or long grass or even a park any time recently, and we don't have pets. My wife trimmed a few bushes and planted some flowers the other day; maybe she inadvertently brought it in the house. It was just under the fold of my knee, where a chair or sofa edge would hit; I hope it's just a fluke "traveling" tick and not any sort of infestation.

I hate ticks.

Part of their excessive level of creepiness is that they, like many small dogs, are curiously incapable of seeing anything larger than themselves as dangerous. Everything is lunch. Unlike most insects and insectoids, they move *towards* you once they know you're there.

I was at a Boy Scout camp several years ago and discovered a tick on my leg, a bit of vaseline on it and it backed out right away. It was creepy but the worst was finding a couple a leaches attached to my ankle at scout summer camp a few years before. They were easier to get rid of than the tick, a little salt and they dropped off.

Pulled a tick out of my beard in Oklahoma, way back when. And the flesh around the head came with it.

Better check with your GP if there is Lyme's desease in your area, it's transferred by ticks, and it's not much fun.

Just one?

We've had a tick explosion here (in some parts of Sweden), and people are complaining that they have to check their bodies every day if they've been outside (even in their garden) – often plucking out a couple of ticks most every day.

You really ought to have killed it.

It's just a tick, and while gross, there's a very low fatality rate from their attacks.

Better check with your GP if there is Lyme's desease in your area, it's transferred by ticks, and it's not much fun.

Generally only the amazingly tiny Deer Ticks, though, and not with any great regularity. I live 50 miles from Lyme, and only know a handful of people and critters that have contracted the disease.
-Kle.

You really ought to have killed it.

At first I thought it was dead.

Then I thought, "Maybe I need to preserve it for a disease test or something. It's not moving. Heck, how fast can that little thing move anyway?"

Pretty dang fast is the apparent answer.

It's dead now.

I usually flush them. If we wind up with giant mutant ticks in the sewers, it'll be my fault.

We had a bad infestation in the yard a couple of years back. Not much since – probably because it has been so dry.

I hate ticks.

"I hate ticks."

So you would say they tick you off…

Terry

I insist that the appearance of this thread and this news item TMP link are entirely coincidental. And it's creeping me out.

We normally get ticks on the dogs, who like to head off into the long grass. Haven't ever seen on on any of our cats.

The best year was when I (accidently) burned the ranch (well, only 60 acres of it). The animals were ash-grey for the summer, but no ticks, no stickers of any kind…

Actually, here in Colorado I worry more about Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever than Lyme's. Got a tick in the armpit (had may jacket off under the 1 tree in hundreds of yards at the base of a cliff while checking out an exposed fossil) back in the 70s and went ahead and got vaccinated (day late and a dollar short). On the other hand my sisters had several run ins with ticks over the years and never had any problems. And there was the time we were playing on the side of the road while my father changed a tire. The frisbee we were throwing hit a small bush on the side of the road and as I reached down to pick it up a tick dropped onto it and scurried across it. Need less to say we became more cautious in our throws.

Most disquieting tick encounter was while skinning an elk a couple of years ago. The carcass had a tick the size of my little finger nail attached to the side of his rectum. It was November and the tick was engorged so it didn't move too quickly though – disposed of it with the offal.