One should never forget that a person is a potential victim of ticks that are carriers of most dangerous viruses, among which tick-borne encephalitis is the first. Blood-sucking ticks live almost everywhere. They can lie in wait for their prey in the forest, in the field, on pastures, as well as in rooms where animals are kept. Despite the variety of species, the greatest threat to humans is posed by a pasture tick, which sticks to the body imperceptibly and painlessly. As a result, a person may not even know about a bite.
Basics of pasture tick ethology
An active type of attack by pasture mites allows them to quickly detect potential food and spend as little time outside shelters as possible. Guided by the sun, they visually determine the shortest path to food and produce an attack.
At the same time, pasture mites (dermacentor marginatus), living in humid and cool conditions, rarely attack openly. Most often, they arrange a kind of ambush on plants in anticipation of a victim, to detect which they use the chemical signals emanating from any living creature. However, it should be noted that pasture mites cannot recognize whether an odor source is suitable for nutrition and even responds to nonspecific odors. Food production under such conditions is associated with active movements to places where ticks smell, coming from people and animals.
Gender differences in pasture ticks
A pasture tick, the dimensions of which in a hungry state rarely exceed 6 mm, can increase to 2 cm. At the same time, it can be distinguished from other varieties not only in unique dimensions, but also in appearance.
Their upper body is covered by a dense dorsal shield, by which it is possible to determine the gender of the individual. In males, it covers the entire upper part of the body, and in females and larvae at all stages of development, only the front part. In addition, females suck out several times more blood than the weight of their own body, as a result of which they swell so much that they begin to resemble a large bean, while the male requires much smaller volumes of blood for normal life. It is noteworthy that females are more often carriers of serious diseases, contributing to the emergence and maintenance of natural foci of viral infections.
Breeding
Given the large number of varieties, it is necessary for a person traveling to nature to think over safety measures and the seriousness of the consequences that a tick on the body can lead to. The photo below allows you to judge the amount of blood that a female needs to use to increase from a few millimeters to similar sizes.
After the female is fully satisfied, she falls to the ground and, picking herself a suitable shelter, proceeds to lay eggs. In this case, the fertilization of females occurs even in the period of saturation on the body of the host. Typically, masonry is done in minks, sand, fallen leaves or in rooms where farm animals are kept. This place is ideally suited not only for its temperature characteristics, but also allows newly-mite ticks to gain quick access to food, since larvae are born extremely hungry.
Larval development
It is noteworthy that the newly minted larva at birth does not have genitals, and only after a few days of continuous feeding, after the molting occurs in the individual, it transforms into a nymph, which in size is very similar to an adult tick.
A pasture tick, the life cycle of which is characterized by characteristic features and is quite complex, includes several stages of transformation: from larva to adult. He needs a minimum amount of time to fully form. The rate of its development directly depends on climatic conditions and the timely finding by a larva of a constant source of food for this period. The larva eats for about three days, after which it has its first molt, after which it transforms into a nymph.
At the nymph stage, the pasture tick remains for about a week, after which another molting occurs, as a result of which the individual transforms into an adult, and the developmental cycle of the pasture tick completes.
Most common types
Despite the fact that ticks are found almost everywhere and have a large number of different species, the most common are:
Ixodes persulcatus is a species quite aggressive towards humans. The most active ticks of this group become on the 2-3rd year of life. It lives almost everywhere and poses a serious threat.
- Ixodes ricinus is a tick that does not exceed 3 mm in size. In the initial stage of development, they are firmly fixed on small rodents and birds, and as they grow older they move to large and medium cattle. In the event that the larvae are born in natural conditions, they use hares and hedgehogs as the main food sources, fixed on which ticks will feed at all stages of development. This species is most widely distributed in America, Western Europe and Russia.
- Dermacentor marginatus. It is quite simple to distinguish ticks of this species from other representatives; it is necessary to carefully examine the dorsal shield of an individual. Its lateral part is dark brown and decorated with light patterns. The stage of imago in dermacentor marginatus begins already at the end of March, allowing them to actively parasitize even before the onset of the final warming and awakening of most tick species. Most often they can be found in meadows and thickets of shrubs, as a result of which they use human blood as the main source of food much more often than others, attacking people both during outdoor recreation and in urban conditions.
- Dermacentor pictus. Ticks of this species are able to absorb large volumes of blood, which in the future will lead not only to a loss of strength, but also to anemia.
Moreover, these species can be divided into three categories:
- A tick that, being at any stage of development, lives on one host.
- A tick, which, being on the original owner, along the way picks up a new source of food.
- A tick that randomly chooses its hosts throughout its life.
Effect of pasture ticks on humans
- If, when removed from the body, the integrity of the skin of the tick is impaired, various pathogens of viral diseases can penetrate the human body.
- If you do not timely treat the bite site, the saliva produced by the pasture mite can lead to a serious allergic reaction, which in the future can cause fever and a lot of nervous diseases.
- They can carry many different viruses that are inherited from pasture ticks: from the female to the larvae.
