Is It a Tick?

Ticks are arthropods (invertebrates with external skeletons and jointed legs) found throughout the United States. Deer ticks feed on white-footed mice, white-tailed deer, as well as other mammals and birds. While they’re waiting for their next meal to walk by, ticks may sit on grasses, perennials, annuals and shrubs (typically not on trees). From there, they crawl (they don’t jump or fly) onto an animal or a person who brushes against the vegetation.

Photo courtesy of CDC

Ticks are found mainly in areas with woods, prairies, shrubs, weeds and tall brush orgrasses—so of course it makes sense that they could easily hang out in a garden. They can reside under fallen leaves, ground covers and sometimes on lawns as well as around stone walls and woodpiles where mice and other small mammals live.

They range in size from as tiny as a poppy seed to as large as a pencil eraser. Most ticks go through four life stages: egg, six-legged larva, eight-legged nymph, and adult. After the eggs hatch, ticks must eat blood at every stage to survive, but it is the extremely small nymphs that are worrisome because they are difficult to spot.  Adult ticks can transmit the disease, but because they are larger and more likely to be removed from a person’s skin within a few hours, they are less likely than nymphs to have sufficient time to transmit the bacteria.