Gulf Coast tick
Amblyomma maculatum
The Gulf Coast tick is a small tick, a tiny relative of spiders with eight legs. It climbs onto animals and people and drinks their blood. Young ticks like to ride on small animals that live on the ground, like cotton rats and birds.
Fun fact: this one is not an insect. It is an arachnid with eight legs, a cousin of the spiders.
Lives in
North America, in grassy and bushy places
Can it hurt you?
Dangerous: look, do not touch
It can carry germs that make people ill, such as tick bite fever. Do not touch it and tell a grown-up if you find a tick on you or your pet. Check your skin after playing in tall grass.
What does it eat?
It drinks the blood of mammals and birds, such as rats, deer, dogs, pigs and sometimes people.
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?
Gulf Coast 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
Young ticks feed on ground birds like cardinals and wrens, and on small mammals.
2
Its hosts include dogs, deer, pigs, rabbits and even people.
you asked
Most asked questions about Gulf Coast tick
?What does the Gulf Coast tick eat?
It drinks the blood of birds and mammals, including dogs, deer and people.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Amblyomma maculatum
- Group
- Scorpions, ticks and friends
- Family
- Ixodidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Ixodida > Ixodidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Amblyomma maculatum (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 Christina Butler from Georgia, United States. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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