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By Jan Clatterbuck
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
With the warm weather approaching and everyone heading to enjoy the outdoors, being active and getting exercise, there are tiny creatures out there looking to enjoy themselves as well — be on the lookout for ticks that can carry threatening diseases.
Lyme disease is one of the most common of these diseases yet a challenge to diagnose. It is caused by spirochete or a type of bacteria called borrelia burgdorferi, which affects humans. People get Lyme disease when they are bitten by a tick carrying this spirochete. This disease organism is vectored by a hard tick, Ixodes dammini, which commonly attacks white-tailed deer.
Ixodes dammini has a rather complex two-year life cycle. Eggs are deposited in the spring and the tiny larvae emerge several weeks later. These ticks feed once during the summer, usually for two days on the blood of small mammals such as field mice. Larvae molt the following spring into nymphs, which also feed once for three to four days, during the summer, either on field mice or larger mammals such as dogs, deer or humans. It is the nymphal stage of Ixodes dammini which is most likely to attack and bite humans. These nymphs will then molt into adults in the fall.
Adult ticks attach themselves to a host, usually the white-tailed deer, where they then mate. The adult male ticks then fall off the host and die, and the females obtain the blood meal necessary for successful egg production.
Antibiotics are an effective treatment if it is caught in the early stage.
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