As the colors change, make sure you keep your TickSmarts in place!

In this edition:

Current

October's crisp, cool days offer up plenty of opportunity to enjoy time outdoors. While you may still encounter tiny larval ticks or an occasional Lone Star or blacklegged tick nymph, Autumn is really all about the explosion in activity by the adult stage blacklegged ticks. Many are surprised to learn that adult blacklegged tick season does not end with the first frost or freeze. October and November are when these ticks come out in full force and are especially common in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and mid-Atlantic regions.

Adult deer ticks differ in their host-seeking behavior from earlier-stage larvae and nymphs, and it’s important to remember this in order to adjust your preparation to prevent these ticks from biting. During the spring and summer blacklegged nymphs and larvae wait for hosts in the more humid leaf litter on the ground, like rodents and ground-foraging birds. Because these stages hang out mostly in the leaf litter, nymphs and larvae mostly gain access to people and pets by latching onto shoes and socks. In contrast, the adult ticks need to find a larger host – preferably deer – so they climb up onto vegetation and wait on the tips of grasses, weeds and low shrubs, usually 1-3 feet off the ground, where there is more “body” of these animals to latch on to. This also means that adult blacklegged ticks attach to us (the unintentional host) at around the same level, and continue to climb up. If you’ve ever found a tick attached to your head, this is why. Ticks do not jump or fall from trees, they climb up, and blacklegged adults take advantage of tall grasses and low shrubs to get a head start at this time of year.

Looking Ahead

As the weather gets colder, it's still a good idea to make sure you’re protecting yourself and your pets whenever you’re outdoors. Remember that dry weather kills blacklegged ticks, but cold weather certainly does not, and they will be around all winter as long as temperatures are above freezing, and ticks are not covered by snow. One particular TickSmart idea to keep in mind as the weather starts to get cooler is to continue to protect your pets with a quick-knockdown tick preventative year round, and not just in the spring and summer. Even if a tick doesn’t bite your pet, it could be carried into your home and become a risk to you and your family. Tick checks for pets are just as important as for people.