Ixodid tick
Ticks interesting facts. Hello friends, ixodid ticks are of great interest not only for study, but it will be useful for people far from science to learn about them, even if you don’t have a dog or cat.
So, ticks are interesting facts, let’s list them in the form of a list.
I hope the ticks presented interesting facts and you learned something new, if you have something to add, don’t hesitate to write in the comments!
1. Ticks are not the most exciting object of study.
Interest in them is caused by fear for the health of people and animals. But scientists are people of a special mindset; they enthusiastically study everything and everyone on the planet. There is an entire branch of zoology that studies ticks. It's called acarology. The number of species of the most numerous group of the arachnid class exceeded 50 thousand.
2. Ticks are not insects, as many people think. Due to their small size and external similarity, ticks are mistakenly classified as insects. In fact, they belong to the class of arachnids.
3. Ticks constitute the largest subclass of arthropods, with more than 48,000 species described.
4. Among the unimaginable variety of arthropods, mites occupy a special place. Their body has a solid structure without division into the chest and abdomen. The main difference between species is the number of limbs; insects have 3 pairs of legs. And ticks have 8 legs or 4 pairs. These creatures also differ from others in their segmented limbs, features oral apparatus, life cycle and habitat.
5. Taxonomists have identified and described about 55,000 species of ticks. But science does not stand still; every year researchers discover new organisms. Many representatives of the subfamily are fairly harmless soil or aquatic inhabitants, but there is also a large group of chelicerate pests.
6. Ticks (Acari) belong to the phylum arthropods. Like other members of the group, they have a chitin-containing cuticle (body membrane). The main feature of this type is paired limbs consisting of several segments.
8. Saprophages - feed on organic debris. Most representatives of this group live in the soil and forest floor, for example, oribatid mites.
9. Phytophages are creatures that live and feed on plants. They are often pests, a prime example being the spider mite.
10. Predators are individuals that hunt prey. What do predatory mites eat? Their diet includes small insects, worms, nematodes and their own relatives. People grow and use the arachnid predators Phytoseiulus and Amblyseius to destroy pests.
Ixodid ticks
11. Of the total number of existing groups of ticks, only a small part poses a direct threat to human life and health. These are ixodid and argasid species.
13. Ixodids are quite large individuals - the female is 3-4 millimeters, the male is 2-2.5 millimeters. On the back of the imago ( adult) there is a dense scute; in the male it covers the entire back, and in the female only one third. The color of the head, legs and body is dark, from brown to black. When saturated with blood, the female increases significantly in size (up to 100 times) and changes color to gray.
Argas mite
14. Ticks reproduce in a unique way. Males fertilize females who feed on the animals' bodies. Bloodsuckers hold the record for the number of eggs they lay. One female leaves up to 17 thousand eggs in the ground. It is good that only a small part of the offspring survives. After birth, the larva feeds once, choosing a rodent as its host.
15.After molting, she becomes a nymph. To transform into an adult, one more feed is needed. In total, ixodid ticks suck blood three times in their life. Most species change hosts, the last being a large animal or human.
Reproduction and development of ticks
16.On the territory of Russia, two types of blood-sucking ticks are considered the most dangerous - the taiga tick and the dog tick.
Water mite
19. The primary larva has 6 legs, swimming with their help, it finds a victim - a bivalve mollusk, and settles in the gills.
20.After feeding, she molts, turns into 8-legged and goes off to swim freely. Having found another mollusk, the secondary larva again attaches to the gills, and a few days after molting it turns into a sexually mature individual.
21. Among blood-sucking ticks As a rule, only females attach for a long time. They feed for 6-7 days and then leave to lay eggs in a secluded place. Males practically do not eat, but they also stick to the skin in search of a female.
22. Ticks are most active before rain and in cool weather.
23. Contrary to very popular belief, ticks rarely fall from trees. Most species live in soil, leaf litter or grass.
24. Ixodid ticks are considered the most dangerous; in addition to the fact that they feed on blood, these small animals are carriers of dangerous diseases in animals and humans (pyroplasmosis, anaplasmosis, encephalitis).
26. Animals often have skin diseases caused by microscopic mites; depending on the type, the disease is called differently (demodectic mange, sarcoptic mange, cheyletiosis, etc.).
27. 97% of the human population are considered carriers of demodex. This interesting fact has been confirmed by clinical studies.
28. With a tick bite, saliva with special substances that have anesthetic properties enters the wound and prevents blood clotting.
29. An adult ixodid bloodsucker can live for 2 years without food.
30. A tick that lives in the Kingdom of Cambodia has hind legs that resemble the structure of a flea's limbs. With the help of these long legs, he is able to jump high, for which the local population calls him “kadot-khai”, which means “jumping egg” in Khmer.
32. Science knows more than 200 species of ticks that prefer to feed on the blood of reptiles.
33. Ticks are one of the most tenacious organisms on earth. They survive in a vacuum and under the beam of an electron microscope, at least the mite Haemaphysalis flava does.
34. Before sucking, ticks can crawl over the victim’s body for up to 40 minutes, choosing the most suitable place.
Tick attack on a person
36. Having analyzed data from Rospotrebnadzor over the past 5 years, it becomes obvious that every year about 500,000 Russians visit medical institutions with complaints of tick bites.
37. From 23 to 37 Russians die every year from tick-borne infections.
38. Scabies, demodexes and ear mites, which spend their entire lives on the host, multiply constantly. Their fertility is much more modest than that of large ticks: the female lays up to 30 eggs in several stages. This low reproductive rate is explained by comfortable conditions and high speed of development.
39. In red beetle populations, females predominate, since these insects can reproduce parthenogenetically. That is, the female makes clutches from unfertilized eggs, as a result the new generation may also consist of females. But as soon as the surrounding conditions change not in better side, red beetles find a male and begin sexual reproduction.
40. This interesting evolutionary mechanism allows one to maintain useful traits under favorable conditions and acquire new traits under unfavorable conditions.
Grasshopper tick
41. Haymaking ticks. Members of this family are distinguished by their relatively large sizes of 1-2.5 millimeters and long, thin legs. Their habitat is forest and field. Representatives of the species are predators, in some cases feeding on plant pollen and fungal spores.
43. These are scabies itch, demodex, chicken feather mite. During the day their activity is weak, but at night they move vigorously, feed and begin to reproduce. It is this fact that explains the repeated increase in itching during scabies at night.
44.Dust moths camouflage themselves in dust, which they eat. Bed mites They live next to the sleeping area of humans and four-legged pets, as well as directly on linen, in mattresses and pillows. Their feces contain a special substance that irritates human skin, provokes itching, and therefore increased separation of the epithelium.
45.Plant pests usually settle under the leaf blade or hide in an unopened bud. They also set up breeding grounds there. Because of the cobwebs that cover the plant affected by the pest, it is very difficult to see not only the eggs, but also the adults.
Dog tick
47. Taiga and dog ticks do not attach immediately. They can wait several hours until the victim falls asleep in order to calmly choose a sweet spot. In addition, they mask the moment of suction with the help of special anesthetics released into the skin along with saliva.
49. The smallest tick measuring 0.08 millimeters is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.
50. Carriers of dangerous diseases have many natural enemies. Birds that eat insects are not averse to snacking on arachnids. Frogs and lizards also eat them with pleasure. Natural enemies of ticks are red forest ants and ground beetles. IN natural ecosystem ants control the dynamics of increasing the number of bloodsucking ants. Formic acid has a detrimental effect on ticks. Ground beetles are polyphagous predators; they hunt small insects, but they also eat arthropods with pleasure.
Ticks carry a whole bunch of diseases, but the nastiest and most common are tick-borne encephalitis and Lyme disease (borreliosis). The first one often causes people to die or become paralyzed and disabled. Encephalitis is very, very difficult to treat, like virtually any viral disease, a person still doesn’t really know how to deal with them. You can also die from borreliosis, but it can be treated with antibiotics.
There were a lot of bad things in the USSR, but what they knew how to do well was fight the tick. Siberians and Altaians were en masse sent for vaccinations. The appearance of a tick in the Moscow region or Leningrad region was an emergency - areas around densely populated cities were massively treated with harsh poisons such as DDT. Now DDT is practically banned according to the demands of environmentalists. However, territories are also not currently treated with less dangerous poisons for a very simple reason: it is expensive. One thousand rubles per hectare. Residents of the country are not worth that much.
Ticks are everywhere now. There are no areas guaranteed to be free from them: you can catch a tick in a children’s camp, in the center of the capital, or at your own comfortable dacha. Every year they are becoming more active, and the map of the spread of encephalitis has already captured almost all regions. Moscow region and Leningrad region in last years have turned into a massive tick-borne insect, with the number of bitten citizens growing by 20% per year. Moreover, every tenth tick on average is infected with borreliosis. Encephalitis, fortunately, is still exotic. Bye.
This is what a tick looks like, just in case you don't know how to recognize one.
And this is what he looks like after drinking blood/
Ticks are active from March to October. That is, while it’s a plus outside, there are ticks there. And in the midst of winter, some cute animal may bring you a tick - a rat or an angry boar.
Arriving at the dacha, carefully examine the light, warm surfaces: the walls of houses, shelters on roses, greenhouses, trellis stands. In the spring, ticks like to climb higher, they like a light background and the warmth of the sun, and from a high position it is convenient to fall on the carcasses of warm-blooded animals passing by. If you find these wonderful boogers, think about what to do next.
Most advice on “how to protect yourself from ticks” does not work. They are written by journalists, feebly trying to pretend that everything in the world can be fixed. That is, if you cut all the grass at your dacha and fill the area with asphalt, the number of ticks will actually decrease. If you examine yourself, your family and friends every twenty minutes, you have a chance to eliminate almost all ticks before they bite. If you wear a spacesuit, the risk can be minimized. In general, you understand.
Ticks in the nymphal, infant stage are carried by small animals. Therefore - death to mice and rats. But, unfortunately, birds are also not fools to throw an armful of ticks into your rose garden.
You can poison your area yourself or call a special team. This is how it works. You need to take serious drugs like “Taran - anti-mite”. If you can get hold of DDT, that's great. Yes, bees and other ants will also take a break. But sometimes spitting on the environment is sacred. Of course, if the area around is infected, ticks will still rush to you on wagtails and ride on water rats, but there will be much, much less of them.
You can spray yourself with anti-mite aerosols, but their effectiveness, unfortunately, is not as high as we would like.
If a tick bites you, the best thing to do is put it in a bottle and go with it to the address that you find by typing into Google “ laboratory test ticks + name of your area.” It’s easier to detect an infection in a tick than in you, and time may be at a premium here. 90% of those bitten, however, do not do this - such is human nature.
But this must be done if: a) after the bite there is a stain like this with a rim.
and b) your temperature rose sharply, headaches and nausea appeared. To the hospital immediately!!!
No, borreliosis and encephalitis are not transmitted from person to person. Even during sex.
Do not crush a tick with your bare hands; in general, you should not touch a tick without gloves or at least some kind of cellophane bags placed on your hands. You can catch encephalitis this way.
The easiest way to pull out a tick is to grab it by the body and twist it in a circle. If the head gets stuck, you can then pick it out with a disinfected needle, like a splinter. And anoint the bite area with brilliant green.
Ticks are also deadly for dogs. The most disgusting and popular disease is piroplasmosis: dogs begin to pee red urine and collapse from weakness. There is treatment, but it is expensive and dangerous. Mutts often have good immunity, and purebred dogs die from piroplasmosis, alas, very easily. Therefore, in the spring, the dog needs to be treated with long-acting anti-tick medications (such as frontline on the withers). A flea collar alone won't help much.
Fortunately, ticks are not so dangerous for cats. That is, ticks also carry diseases that are dangerous for cats, but one of them is extremely rare, the second is carried by many cats without symptoms or consequences, and most veterinarians generally doubt the existence of the third. But still put the collar on the cat. At least there will be fewer fleas.
Well, of course, children should only be taken in a spacesuit and examined non-stop. Moreover, a tick can now be picked up, as we already wrote, even from a dandelion in kindergarten in the center of the metropolis.
If you make a hell of a fuss, collect signatures and flood the local administration with letters, you can get them to carry out an anti-tick treatment in your area. Yes, it costs money, and the number of invited artists for "Patriot, Spring and Budget Day" may have to be reduced. But under pressure from the public, officials sometimes give in and raise cornballs with poison into the air.
Ticks are not the most exciting subject to study. Interest in them is caused by fear for the health of people and animals. But scientists are people of a special mindset; they enthusiastically study everything and everyone on the planet. There is an entire branch of zoology that studies ticks. It's called acarology. the most numerous group of the arachnid class exceeded 50 thousand. This and other interesting facts about ticks will help you form your own opinion about these animals.
Due to their small size and external similarity, ticks are mistakenly classified as insects. In fact, they belong to the class of arachnids. Their body has a solid structure without division into the chest and abdomen. The main difference between species is the number of limbs; insects have 3 pairs of legs. How many legs does a tick have? It has 8 legs or 4 pairs.
Ticks (Acari) belong to the phylum arthropods. Like other members of the group, they have a chitin-containing cuticle (body membrane). The main feature of this type is paired limbs consisting of several segments.
According to the way they feed, representatives of the Acari family can be divided into several groups:
All representatives of the family, depending on their characteristics, were divided into several orders:
Ixodid ticks
While telling everything about ticks, you can’t miss the haymakers. Members of this family are distinguished by their relatively large sizes of 1-2.5 mm and long thin legs. Their habitat is forest and field. Representatives of the species are predators, in some cases feeding on plant pollen and fungal spores.
The state of diapause occurs at any stage of development of ixodid species. In summer when high temperature and in the absence of moisture they also freeze. Cases have been recorded where an adult tick was in a state of diapause for up to 8 years.
Each link of the ecological system has its own function. Millions of ticks inhabit the earth, water, plants and living organisms. They an integral part of natural balance. Like other representatives of the fauna, arachnids are part of the food chain. What importance do ticks play in nature and human life? Soil species process organic matter in the soil. Through the efforts of small arthropods, fertile humus appears. As food for reptiles, birds and insects, mites contribute to the survival of these species.
Arachnids eat fungal spores, algae and bacterial plaque. Predators reduce the number of insects, nematodes, and worms. This feature makes them plant orderlies. Animal infection various diseases- This is a kind of natural way to control their numbers.
Ticks reproduce in a unique way. Males fertilize females who feed on the animals' bodies. Bloodsuckers hold the record for the number of eggs they lay. One female leaves up to 17 thousand eggs in the ground. It is good that only a small part of the offspring survives. After birth, the larva feeds once, choosing a rodent as its host. After molting, she becomes a nymph. To transform into an imago (adult) one more feeding is necessary. In total, ixodid ticks suck blood three times in their life. Most species change hosts, the last being a large animal or human.
Attention. In Russia, two types of blood-sucking ticks are considered the most dangerous - and the dog tick.
Attention. The number of people infected with encephalitis is 2-6% of those bitten by the ixodid species.
Advice. Choose light-colored clothing for hiking; brown ticks are easier to spot on them.
In addition to blood-sucking species that spread deadly diseases, there are many ticks that cause trouble. They are a source of irritation and allergies in people and pets. Some are unlikely to cause damage to gardens, fields, and settle on indoor plants. Among the species that exist near humans:
Where do mites come from in apartments? They get into homes with dust, on people's clothes, and animal fur. Favorable conditions V indoors and the abundance of food lead to their spread.
Impact negative temperatures is also detrimental to them. Even being in a state of winter diapause, ticks die in winters with little snow. Items that should not be exposed hot processing, can be frozen.
Carriers of dangerous diseases have many natural enemies. Birds that eat insects are not averse to snacking on arachnids. Frogs and lizards also eat them with pleasure. Natural enemies of ticks are red forest ants and ground beetles. In the natural ecosystem, ants control the dynamics of the increase in the number of bloodsucking ants. Formic acid has a detrimental effect on ticks. Ground beetles are polyphagous predators; they hunt small insects, but they also eat arthropods with pleasure.
The class of arachnids includes spiders, mites and scorpions. All these creatures have a similar structure and are mainly land dwellers. How are ticks different from spiders? There are quite a lot of differences between representatives of this class. First of all, this is the structure of the body. Spiders have two distinct sections – the cephalothorax and abdomen. Ticks do not have such a boundary; their body is solid. All spiders are predators; among mites there are many species that feed on organic debris or living plants.
The fluctuation in size is similar. Both groups have representatives invisible to the naked eye with a body length of 0.3 mm. They have the same number of limbs - 4 pairs of walking legs. They have spikes and suction cups to hold them on the host's body. Both species are armed with claw-like processes - chelicerae. Most arachnids are covered with a chitinous shell. Their respiratory organ is the trachea, only small species breathe with the whole body.
And a few more facts:
Perhaps we should start with the fact that ticks are not insects, as many people believe, but arachnids. They constitute the largest subclass of arthropods, with more than 48,000 species described.
The length of ticks is usually small, from 0.2 to 5 mm. The body can be whole or divided into two parts (abdomen and cephalothorax). By type of feeding, most ticks are saprophages or predators, but there are also species in which omovampyrism occurs, when hungry ticks attack their well-fed relatives.
Tiny Reds spider mites feed on plant juices. At mass destruction a web stretches between the ticks, for which they got their name.
Science knows more than 200 species of ticks that prefer to feed on the blood of reptiles.
The smallest tick measures 0.08 mm. The largest are ixodid ticks. Once saturated with blood, some individuals reach a length of 3 cm.
Ticks are most active before rain and in cool weather.
Ticks are one of the most resilient organisms on earth. They survive in a vacuum and under the beam of an electron microscope, at least the mite Haemaphysalis flava definitely does.
Contrary to very popular belief, ticks rarely fall from trees. Most species live in soil, leaf litter or grass.
Before attaching themselves, ticks can crawl over the victim’s body for up to 40 minutes, choosing the most suitable place.
Among blood-sucking ticks, as a rule, only females stick for a long time. They feed for 6-7 days and then leave to lay eggs in a secluded place. Males practically do not eat, but they also stick to the skin in search of a female.
Microscopic mites can be found in almost any bed, pillows, blanket or mattress. Withdraw uninvited guests It’s almost impossible to do it yourself, so the only way to get rid of them is to contact the Disinfection Center, a service specializing in the destruction of ticks, insects, fungus, rodents and other nasty things.
Ixodid ticks are considered the most dangerous, in addition to the fact that they feed on blood, these small animals are carriers of dangerous diseases in animals and humans (pyroplasmosis, anaplasmosis, encephalitis).
Animals often have skin diseases caused by microscopic mites; depending on the type, the disease is called differently (demodectic mange, sarcoptic mange, cheyletiosis, etc.).
With a tick bite, saliva containing special substances enters the wound, which have anesthetic properties and prevent blood clotting.
