Winter tick
The winter tick is a small tick that lives on big animals like moose, deer and elk. Instead of hopping from animal to animal, it spends almost its whole life on just one. The female is reddish-brown with a white patch behind her head.
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?
Fun facts
Its babies climb up plants and wait together in groups of about 1,000, ready to grab onto a passing animal.
A single moose can end up carrying many thousands of these ticks.
Moose have a hard time getting rid of them, but white-tailed deer are much better at it.
A mother tick can lay up to 3,000 eggs at once.
By the end of winter a full female can swell up to about 15 millimetres long.
Most asked questions about Winter tick
?Is the winter tick dangerous to people?
It does not spread diseases to people or pets. It can still bite, so a grown-up should remove any tick they find.
?Why is it called the winter tick?
Because it lives on its animal through the winter and the females drop off in late winter or early spring.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dermacentor albipictus
- Group
- Scorpions, ticks and friends
- Family
- Ixodidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Ixodida > Ixodidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Dermacentor albipictus (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 Emily S. Chenery. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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