Awesome Arachnid

August 3, 2009

Lois stopped in the clinic today to get some more doxycycline for me because the redness has not gone away after a week of treatment. My pet parasite must have really liked me.

It seems I picked up a few new friends that day when Lyle and I went juneberry picking. At one point, I saw a photo possibility and got down on the ground to shoot it. That was a mistake. I wasn’t thinking. North Dakota has ticks, lots of them waiting in the prairie grass.

Lois looked me over and we found two or three. I thought that was the end of it.
Then, about ten days ago, I started itching and burning above the pecs on my left side. There was a very red and swollen area about four inches in diameter. I didn’t know what it was and asked Lois about it.

“I don’t know what it is, but you’re going to the doctor asap,” Lois said.

“It’s a tick,” the nurse said.

“Are you sure,” I said.

“No doubt about it,” she said. “I am going to give you a shot in the butt and ten days of doxycycline to clear this up; it’s what we do for lyme disease.”

Tick is the common name for the small arachnids. They are external parasites that live on the blood of mammals, birds and sometimes amphibians. They are also carriers of disease -- Lyme disease, Q fever, tularemia, babsiosis, ehrlichiosis, even meningoencephalitis.

Young ticks have six legs, and mature ticks have eight legs, as in the photo above. They vary in size and appearance depending on the species.

Ticks are found in tall grass and shrubs where they will wait to attach to a host. Physical contact is the only way they do it. They do not skip, jump or fly. Sometimes they will drop on some unsuspecting host from above.

How they attach is rather interesting. They insert their cutting mandibles(chelicerea) and feeding tube(hypostome) into the skin. The feeding tube is covered with barbs that serve as an anchor. Then they do what they know best.

Source for this technical stuff: Wikipedia