Ticks

Scientific Name: Ixodida family

How to identify a tick

Ticks are small, wingless, bloodsucking arthropods. They burrow their heads into their host and can change drastically in shape, color and size when they become engorged with blood. Ticks have extremely small mouths that usually go unnoticed when they bite.

Where are ticks commonly found?

Ticks like shady, moist leaf litter with an overstory of trees or shrubs and, in the spring, they deposit their eggs into such places allowing larvae to emerge in the fall and crawl into low-lying vegetation. The 3 meter boundary closest to the lawn's edge are a tick migration zone, where 82% of tick nymphs in lawns are found

Why are ticks considered a pest?

Tick-borne diseases occurring in Australia are Australian Tick Typhus or 'Spotted Fever' (along the coastal strip of eastern Australia from North Queensland to Victoria) and 'Flinders Island Spotted Fever' (in Victoria, Tasmania and Flinders Island in Bass Strait). Early symptoms of tick paralysis can include rashes, headache, fever, flu like symptoms, tenderness of lymph nodes, unsteady gait, intolerance to bright light, increased weakness of the limbs and partial facial paralysis.

What is the biology and lifecycle of a tick?

Ticks have four stages to their lifecycle, namely egg, larva, nymph, and adult. 

Management Tips for Ticks

A habitat preferred by ticks is the interface where a lawn meets the forest, or more generally, the ecotone, which is unmaintained transitional edge habitat between woodlands and open areas. Therefore, one tick management strategy is to remove leaf litter, brush, and weeds at the edge of the woods.

Ticks like shady, moist leaf litter with an overstory of trees or shrubs and, in the spring, they deposit their eggs into such places allowing larvae to emerge in the fall and crawl into low-lying vegetation.

The 3 meter boundary closest to the lawn's edge are a tick migration zone, where 82% of tick nymphs in lawns are found