Ticks!

            Has anyone else been seeing more ticks this year than usual?  I don’t know if it is the year for them or the different tick medicine we are using on our dog but this year has been bad.  It was pretty standard for our dog to bring in maybe 3-4 ticks in a given season but this year we see that almost everyday.  The tick that is most common in our area is the western-blacklegged tick (Ixodes pacificus), and yes, it does transmit Lyme disease.  The UC IPM pest note on Lyme disease (http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7485.html) states that only 1 to 2% of adult ticks are carriers of the spirochete that causes Lyme disease.  Oddly enough the rates go up to 2 to 15% in the tick nymphs. I thought it was strange that the younger ticks had a higher infection rate till I saw a study out of UC Berkeley that might explain it.  Apparently the tick nymphs regularly feed on the common western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis), which has something in its blood, which not only protects the lizard from infection, but also actually kills the spirochete in the young tick.  So an infected tick bites a lizard and the tick is cleansed of its infection.  How cool is that?   Here is a link to the article:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1998/0429/lizard.html .  If you have some time, it is certainly worth reading!

            The good news is that according to the UC IPM website, the ticks seem most active in spring to midsummer and that the nymphs are especially susceptible to the heat!  So, if you are like me in longing for a break in the heat, you can take some comfort in the knowledge that at least the ticks are suffering right along with us.

 

 

Different stages of the western blacklegged tick

The heroic common western fence lizard!

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