Australian paralysis tick
Ixodes holocyclus
The Australian paralysis tick is a tiny tick that lives along the east coast of Australia. It climbs onto plants and waits with its front legs out to grab a passing animal. It drinks blood, and it is the most important tick in Australia to watch out for.
Fun fact: this one is not an insect. It is an arachnid with eight legs, a cousin of the spiders.
Lives in
A strip along the east coast of Australia, especially in wet forests and rainforests
Can it hurt you?
Dangerous: look, do not touch
Its bite can make people and pets very sick. After a walk in the bush, check skin and hair, do not touch a tick yourself, and tell a grown-up so they can remove it safely.
What does it eat?
It drinks blood.
Ticks: how to stay safe
- In Estonia, the castor bean tick and the taiga tick can carry Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis.
- Ticks wait on grass stems, from ankle to knee height. Long trousers tucked into socks and light clothes help you spot them.
- After playing outside, check your body, your hair and your pets for ticks.
- Found a tick? A grown-up should take it out quickly with fine tweezers or a tick tool: hold it close to the skin and pull slowly. No oil or alcohol on it. Then wash the spot.
- There is a vaccine against tick-borne encephalitis, for children too from one year old. Ask your doctor.
- If in the weeks after a bite you get a fever, feel ill or see a red patch that grows, go to a doctor.
How fast is it?
Australian paralysis tick about 0.02 km/h (0.01 mph)
A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
A baby tick hatches with only six legs. It gets two more legs later, when it grows into the next stage.
2
It needs three blood meals from three different animals to grow up.
3
A female can lay up to 3000 eggs in the fallen leaves.
you asked
Most asked questions about Australian paralysis tick
?Where does the paralysis tick live?
Along the east coast of Australia, mostly in wet forests.
?How many legs does a tick have?
Grown-up ticks have eight legs, like spiders. Baby ticks have only six.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ixodes holocyclus
- Named by
- Neumann, 1899
- Group
- Scorpions, ticks and friends
- Family
- Ixodidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Ixodida > Ixodidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Paralysis tick
Where the facts come from
- Ixodes holocyclus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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