Where do you find ticks?

1. Where do you find ticks? • Deer ticks seek hosts by an interesting behavior called “questing.” • Questing ticks crawl up the stems of grass or perch on the edges of leaves on the ground in a typical posture with the front legs extended, especially in response to a host passing by. • Certain biochemicals such as carbon dioxide as well as heat and movement serve as stimuli for questing. • These ticks climb on to a potential host which brushes against their extended front legs. • These ticks are commonly collected by the use of “drags” made from 1 m square pieces of fabric. Deer tick “questing” in tall grass.

2. Our tick collection methods • Materials: • Light-colored bed sheet • Hand held GPS devices • Sealable plastic containers • Methods: • We began by stopping at the banks of pre-selected locations listed in the GPS. • We separated into groups of about two and while holding the sheet open, we swept the ground. • After dragging for 100 yards we examined the sheet in hopes of finding black-legged ticks.

3. Our Results • We continued collecting over two days for a total of eight stops. • We found six ticks. • Some observations were made about the general environment in which the ticks were found, however, very little information was recorded. • All of the ticks found were in their nymph stage and were not much larger than the point of a pencil. • Our sampling was done during the mid summer season rather than the late spring or fall, this may be why so few ticks were collected.