Ticks appear in March and disappear at the end of October. Peak activity occurs in May-June, September-October. Favorable living conditions are temperatures within 20 degrees Celsius, high humidity, tall grass, thickets, and shrubs. The greatest danger to humans is ixodid ticks, which transmit borreliosis and tick-borne encephalitis. They are found in the wild, city parks, public gardens, and near houses. One of the most pressing questions is who eats ticks in nature.
Description and types
Ticks have inhabited the planet since ancient times. They are not insects, as most people believe, but belong to the class of arachnids, which includes more than 25 thousand species. Their sizes vary from 0.1 to 0.5 mm; it is extremely rare to find representatives of arthropods about 3 mm in size. Ticks do not have wings. They move in space using the sensory apparatus, since they do not have an organ of vision. They can smell the scent of a future victim at a distance of 10 meters.
Depending on the structure of the body, oxygen supply occurs in different ways. Those arachnids that have a fused head and chest breathe through the skin or trachea, and armored representatives have special spiracles.
The main types of ticks include:
- ixodidae;
- argasaceae;
- armored;
- gamas;
- subcutaneous;
- scabies;
- ear;
- dusty;
- arachnoid;
- nautical;
- predatory;
- pasture;
- brown dog
Recognizing chigger bites
Chiggers prefer to bite vulnerable areas such as skin folds and areas around the base of hair follicles. The armpits and groin satisfy both of these requirements. When they bite, they inject saliva. Saliva contains enzymes that liquefy skin cells (yuck) and chiggers suck out the fluid.
When chiggers bite you, your body reacts by hardening cells against the bite, which creates a tube. The tube acts as the perfect straw to help the chigger as it continues to suck out the liquid skin. This is all pretty gross for most people, but other than irritating your skin and making it itchy, it won't hurt you.
Irritation that causes the body to resist and harden the area leads to itching, and itching does this. Chigger bites are known for being extremely itchy and causing red bumps. The impacts cover large areas around the ankles, groin, armpits and around the waist near the belt line.
In North America, chiggers are harmless except for itching. In Asia, on the other hand, chiggers can spread typhoid scrub.
What do they eat?
Where ticks live and what they feed on is of interest to many people who want to prevent encounters with these arthropods. According to the type of nutrition, arachnids can be divided into:
- Saprophages that feed exclusively on organic debris.
- On predators that parasitize plants and animals.
Feeding on plant juices, mites cause significant damage to agriculture. Scabies and field arachnids eat particles of human epidermis. Granary feeders feed on decaying plant remains, flour, and grain. For subcutaneous mites, the food is the fat of human hair follicles, while ear mites consume fat from the hearing aids of animals.
Having taken their place on a branch or blade of grass, blood-sucking predators await their prey. Having waited, they attach themselves to it using paws with claws and suction cups, and then gradually reach the feeding site. The victim of arachnids is usually not only humans, but also other representatives of ticks.
Parasites are carriers of infectious diseases, so their bite can be fatal to humans. Arachnids can go without food for about three years, but once they receive food, they increase in weight several times.
Question about the topic
The summer season has begun and ticks are becoming more active. Is it true that a person can be vaccinated against these dangerous parasites?
Galina Pushkina Photo: AiF
— In order to develop immunity to diseases transmitted by ticks, you need to be vaccinated according to a certain scheme. The first vaccination is given in the fall, then in the spring, and the third one a year later. Immunity after three-time vaccination lasts for three years,” said Galina Pushkina, director of the network of medical centers .
To maintain your immunity, you need to be vaccinated every three years throughout your life. If you have not been vaccinated before, then emergency vaccination can help you: the period between injections is reduced to two weeks. This measure is relevant in the spring. According to the doctor, there may be a local reaction (redness of the skin) to the vaccine. In 3% of cases, fever, general malaise, and drowsiness may occur (in children). This goes away after a few days. There are a number of contraindications for vaccination, so you should consult your doctor.
If the tick has already attached itself to you, you need to carefully unscrew it, put it in a glass container with a damp cloth and take it to the laboratory for examination.
Natural enemies
There are a large number of means of combating parasites. Nature also made sure that their numbers did not grow indefinitely. Arachnids are an important link in the food chain for many insects, birds and other animals.
Natural enemies that feed on ticks in nature and thereby control the arachnid population include:
- frogs;
- other types of arachnids;
- birds (sparrows, thrushes, starlings and others);
- ground beetles;
- dragonflies;
- ants;
- wasps;
- riders.
Natural enemies for ticks in nature are also fungal spores, which have a detrimental effect on them and cause fungal diseases in them. Therefore, it is so important to prevent large-scale burning of grass and treatment of large areas with acaricides. This will lead to disruption of the natural balance and as a result, not only the parasites themselves will die, but also their enemies. In addition, most of the tick eggs will survive, which will lead to their rapid reproduction and spread.
To the bloodsucker's doom
Andrey Egorov Photo: AiF
Today, veterinary pharmacies offer a large list of protective products against ticks and fleas. According to Andrey Egorov, a representative of the manufacturing company and a veterinarian , dog breeders are offered special drops, collars, and tablets for pets.
— The products that are used on the dog’s skin have disadvantages. Firstly, the animal must have a good lipid layer on the surface of the skin, says A. Egorov. “But this layer may decrease if the animal is washed frequently. Secondly, the drop treatment calendar must be strictly observed. It is necessary to treat your pet against ticks monthly, without skipping the time of the next treatment, otherwise the effectiveness of protecting your pet will decrease or disappear altogether, says the expert.
Lately, veterinarians have often been offering tick and flea treat tablets for dogs. According to the manufacturers, the drugs are safe for animals, but destructive for ticks - the active substance is in the interstitial fluid, and wherever the parasite bites, it will “try” this remedy and die.
Remember: only a clinically healthy animal can be treated with any product. It is better to give tablets to a dog (there are no tablets for cats yet) with food. According to L. Levkina, today dog breeders use triple protection - a whole range of means. But the whole complex cannot be used at the same time!
— If you decide to use any other drug to treat dogs in addition to the tablet, choose products that can repel flying insects. The spectrum of protection will be expanded - there will be an impact on mosquitoes and other flying parasites, advises A. Egorov.
This is interesting: How does the bighorn sheep use its horns?
Meaning in nature and human life
It is difficult to find a place on Earth where these representatives of arachnids do not live. Ticks are found wherever possible: in the forest, in a personal plot, in a garden, and even in city parks and squares. All types differ in structure, color, and size.
Some of them cause irreparable harm to plants, others are parasitic on animals and humans, and still others are blood-sucking specimens.
People have been fighting them for a very long time, but the importance of ticks in nature should still be recognized.
For example, ixodid arthropods are the most dangerous to humans, as they carry deadly infectious diseases. Despite this, they play an important role in the ecosystem, as they regulate natural selection. If such a tick bites a weak animal, it will die, and strong ones will develop immunity. This helps maintain balance among animals on Earth. Thus, it follows that some representatives of arthropods, although of great importance for nature, still cause great harm to people.
Features of the lifestyle of ticks
Ticks are not active all year round. During periods of winter cold and summer heat, they plunge into a state of diapause, during which all their metabolic processes slow down. Parasites are most active in spring and late summer – early autumn.
They wake up around mid-April, remain active throughout May, disappear in June-July and become active again in August and September. Bloodsuckers enter hibernation in October-November, when temperatures reach sub-zero temperatures.
Much of the behavior of ixodids depends on the climate of a particular region. For example, in places where the summer is hot and dry, ticks will remain in diapause during the summer months, but where it is cold and wet, they will remain active.
This lifestyle of ticks suggests that they can either become victims of any animal that feeds on small arthropods and search for them among the grass, or be accidentally swallowed by herbivores along with plant food. It is also possible that the attached tick will be eaten directly from the host’s skin.
Ticks are a subclass of arthropods from the class of arachnids
Benefits of arachnids
Despite the fact that people are prejudiced against ticks, there are still benefits from them. In nature and in various industries, they can provide significant assistance:
- While causing enormous damage to agriculture, they still have a positive role. Being mostly saprophages in their diet, they improve the soil by feeding on the decaying remains of plants and animals.
- Predatory representatives of this class are used to exterminate other arachnids, which suck all the juice from plants, destroying most of the crop.
- They can also rid a plant affected by spores of parasitic fungi.
- Scientists have long been interested in the enzymes contained in the saliva of arthropods. Anticoagulants, as they are also called, prevent blood clotting.
- Some types of cheese are made by attaching a microscopic mite to the rind of the product at the beginning of its ripening. This allows cheese makers to obtain a unique pattern and specific aroma, makes it porous, which allows the cheese to breathe throughout the entire ripening process.
Representatives of the arachnid class are part of the food chain and an important link in the ecosystem. For example, the favorite delicacy of some birds and frogs is ixodid ticks.
Traditional methods
In order to get rid of spider mites, you can use folk methods and homemade remedies. The most effective include:
- Soap solution and ash. 200 grams of ash must be dissolved in 5 liters of water and add a crushed bar of laundry soap. Stir thoroughly until the soap dissolves and spray the damaged plants. Repeat the procedure after 10 days.
- Garlic infusion. Pass 100 grams of garlic through a press and add a liter of water. Leave for 2 days, then strain and dilute in 5 liters of warm water. Spray the crop with the resulting solution. This method is also effective against aphids on eggplants.
- Onion peel. This method is suitable for all types of plants. To prepare, you need to pour 1 kg of husk with 5 liters of water and leave for several days. Strain the resulting solution and treat the beds.
- Alcohol. Most often, this method is used to control pests on indoor lemons. Alcohol and water must be mixed in equal proportions, and carefully wipe the damaged leaves. Repeat the procedure after 4 days.
DIY remedies give good results only at the beginning of the problem. If the mite appears in large numbers, you need to use ready-made preparations.
Danger and harm
Ixodid representatives of the species pose a great danger to both representatives of the animal world and people. The taiga tick, or, as it is also called, the encephalitis tick, is in first place in terms of danger, as it is a carrier of diseases such as borrelosis, encephalitis, ehrlichiosis and other diseases.
Due to the fact that the food of these arachnids is blood, infection occurs after a bite. The causative agents of fatal diseases enter the human body along with the saliva of arthropods. Other types of arachnids can also harm human health, for example, subcutaneous scabies mites, which can be carriers of diseases such as dermatitis and scabies.
Saprophages, which seem harmless at first glance, can also harm people. Due to their small size, there are no places inaccessible to them, so they live almost everywhere:
- flour - feeds on flour, cereals, grains and thereby destroys a large amount of food;
- arachnoid - destroys a garden or indoor plant;
- dust - eats particles of the epidermis, dust, and can also cause an allergic reaction and asthma in humans.
- ear - causes inconvenience to cats and dogs, moving into their ears.
Ticks, as it turns out, can be both beneficial and harmful to humans and nature as a whole. They occupy a certain ecological niche and fulfill their direct responsibilities.
Application of purchased acaricides
When using chemicals against ticks, you must adhere to the following recommendations:
Their use is strictly prohibited on the eve of honey collection or during the process. Neglecting this rule can result in dangerous toxins in the honey.
It is necessary to use only those drugs that are approved for treatments against varroa mites. Formic acid may only be used in the form of Illert tiles. Before using a chemical, you must carefully read the instructions.
The honeycombs that are in the hive at the time of processing cannot be used later, like honeycombs. They definitely need to be melted.
In the process of pumping out honey, you need to use a sieve to separate wax particles from the honey. The wax may contain pesticide residues.
Chemical-based products are used against ticks that kill them or severely damage them. Drugs can be fed to bees and affect the parasite through the blood.
In addition, they can evaporate in the hive and infect the pest through the respiratory system. Also, some drugs act through the contact of bees with them through the strips along which they move.
The following drugs are currently used:
Pericin for varroa mites
This chemical acts on the parasite through the bee's blood. It kills ticks that are on it. It is used in winter, when there is no brood. Usually 2 treatments are planned at intervals of a week, at temperatures close to zero.
A colony in a two-hull hive uses 30 ml of emulsion. Treatment is carried out with a spray bottle or syringe.
Apitol
This water-soluble drug easily penetrates honey, which requires careful use. The product powder should be dissolved in water and applied by spraying.
Formic acid on Illert tiles
The method is based on the evaporation of the product from the surface of the tile. Vapors of the drug penetrate into the hive with the air and affect mites through the respiratory system. Apply the chemical in the evening, with the taphole open, at a temperature of 12 to 20 degrees Celsius.
Such treatments can be planned 4 per season, with intervals between them of 15 days. For a single-hull hive, 1 tile is enough.
Bayvarol
The product is sold in the form of special strips, which should be hung along the inner perimeter of the hive. The product gets on the bees when they come into contact with the strips.
Life cycle
Individuals in the nymph stage, as well as fertilized females, go to winter. Speaking of nymphs, these individuals continue to develop in winter. But the females wait for spring to lay eggs and continue the population. Regarding the laying of eggs, there are a huge number of them, not hundreds, but thousands of the new young generation. The life cycle of a bloodsucker depends on many factors, but on average it is 2 years. During this period, one individual can change 3 owners.
These parasites are dangerous already at the stage of larvae that emerge from eggs. For further development they need food. Most often, their victims are rodents, small animals and birds. They attack the victim, feed on blood and fall off. Then, in the warmed ground, they molt and move into the next nymph stage. If an individual enters the nymph stage in the summer, it looks for a new victim; when it is autumn, then at this stage the individual hides for the winter.
At the nymph stage, the individual also needs nutrition for further development. Both wild and domestic animals, rodents, birds can become victims of the nymph, and they can also attack people. When she is satisfied with blood, she herself falls away from the victim’s body. Once on the soil, it enters the adult stage. These are young individuals that, after being saturated with blood, become sexually mature and ready to reproduce. They continue their activity in the spring, when they lay eggs.
What measures should I take, should I go to the doctor?
If a lesion is found, then the main thing that needs to be done is to remove the parasite from the body. This is problematic because the parasites secrete something like glue, clinging tightly to the wound. This is what creates problems when removing a tick.
In order to remove an insect from the skin, you must first carefully loosen its body, shaking it to the sides. This way you can “unstick” the proboscis inside the wound
Under no circumstances should his head be allowed to remain in the skin. The trunk is a source of infection, so sharp tweezers are not used for extraction; they can easily tear off the body of the parasite, leaving the head in the wound.
When the body is loose, you should try to grab the tick right at the head and gently pull it out. As practice shows, the parasite will come out. However, if the trunk remains in the skin, you should not try to remove it in any way. Lubricate the area with brilliant green, and after 2-3 days it will leave the body on its own.
By the way, the opinion of many that the parasite will go away from the wound if the area is smeared with fat or cologne is a myth.
You can remove a tick from your body only using the method described above. If the tick is removed, you need to place it in a box or jar and take it to the clinic for analysis. In the laboratory, specialists will determine whether the insect is infected or not. If a person takes care of himself, then he should promptly visit a doctor. After all, if the lesion is caused by an infected parasite, it is better to carry out therapy as soon as possible.
Infections do not occur often. But to be completely sure, it makes sense to observe the affected area for 2-3 days. If a pink spot appears at the site of the bite, then there is no need to worry. This is a normal reaction and the spot will soon disappear. But, if the spot begins to grow, then you can’t wait - you need to contact a doctor, who will refer you for tests. Even if the examination result does not reveal the disease, you need to carefully monitor your health for another 30 days. If signs of illness appear, you cannot do without medical help.
How does infection occur?
Infection of bees with the varroa mite leads to a severe invasive disease of bees, their pupae and larvae, called varroatosis. This disease is a real scourge of the beekeeping industry and causes enormous damage to it.
In summer, the spread of mites from infected bees to healthy ones occurs in the following way:
- wandering bees;
- thieving bees;
- when removing apiaries;
- during swarming of bees;
- when purchasing bees and queens;
- when introducing infected brood into families;
- when infected bees come into contact with healthy ones, during pollination of flowers;
- due to improper storage of drone brood.
Varroa can spread at a speed of 10 km per quarter, and this depends on the presence of apiaries in the vicinity. It has been noted that in regions with a hot climate, varroatosis spreads faster.
Important! We should not forget that bees suffer from not only varroa because of mites. These insects carry dangerous infections of paratyphoid, nosematosis and American foulbrood
In this case, the death of bees accelerates and becomes widespread.
Expanding the boundaries
Over the past decades, the range of ixodid ticks has changed and expanded. Thus, if previously it was believed that in Russia the problem of tick-borne infections was relevant only for Siberia and the Far East, now it is well known to residents of the western regions of the country. Ticks are increasingly spreading in other regions of the planet: in the USA and Canada, China and the countries of Southeast Asia, South America.
According to scientists, one of the reasons for this phenomenon is climate warming. It has been repeatedly shown that migratory birds can carry ticks over long distances (Sparagano et al
., 2015). But if earlier ticks could not take root in the northern territories, now the situation has changed. In many regions of the planet, winters have become shorter and milder, and ticks are able to survive the winter more easily.
About 60 species of ticks from the family Ixodidae have been found on the territory of Russia, but the most dangerous are ticks of the genus Ixodes
, the main carriers of the tick-borne encephalitis virus, the causative agents of ixodid tick-borne borreliosis (Lyme disease) and borrelia from the group of relapsing fevers.
Ticks of the genera Dermacentor
,
Haemaphysalis
and
Rhipicephalus
are the main carriers of pathogenic species of rickettsia, and
Hyalomma
- the Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever virus (Filippova, 1977, 1997)
Thus, in Sweden and Norway for the period 1994–2008. The limit of occurrence of ticks has moved more than 200 km north along the Baltic coast (Jaenson et al
., 2012). On the North American continent, ticks began to be found almost 1000 km further north compared to the period 1943–1983. And in the mountains in the north of the Czech Republic, where temperatures have risen by 1.4° over four decades, ticks appeared at altitudes of up to 1,300 m above sea level. In Russia in the 1960s. The taiga tick was found only in the southern regions of the Komi Republic, but now it is also found in the central ones: over the past forty years, the northern border of its range has moved 150–200 km (Loktev, 2015).
The second possible reason for changes in the range of ticks is a change in the environmental situation caused by human activity. For example, naturalists who traveled to the USA in the mid-18th century noted a large number of ticks there. But a century later, due to the development of agriculture, the number of white-tailed deer, the main feeder of black-legged ticks,
, which led to a decrease in the number of these parasites. However, in the second half of the last century, the number of both host animals and ticks themselves increased manifold. Accordingly, the number of tick attacks on humans has increased as city dwellers began to spend more and more time in nature.
Recently, in Western Siberia, the range of the Pavlovsky mite
, and the cause of this event remains unclear.
At the end of the last century, its habitat was only in the territory of Altai and other mountainous regions (Salair Ridge, Kuznetsk Alatau). Now it is found in most of the studied lowland areas of the Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions, while in some areas, mainly with high anthropogenic load, the Pavlovsky tick has almost completely replaced the taiga tick
(Livanova et al., 2011; Romanenko, 2011).
Perhaps this change in range is associated with long-term anti-tick treatments of the area around large cities, which were carried out in the 1960–1980s. When these places began to be repopulated by ticks, I. pavlovskyi
received an advantage, since its life cycle is shorter, and it can feed on birds, the number of which in anthropogenic foci is higher compared to the number of large mammals, the main feeders of the taiga tick.
In some cases, the habitat of ticks is expanding southward. Thus, in Western Siberia in the 1960–1970s. range of the meadow tick
moved south, from the forest to the forest-steppe zone. The reason could be a combination of several factors: acaricidal treatment of forests and a change in the structure of rodent populations - the main hosts of the tick (Yakimenko, 2013).
INTERSPECIFIC ALLIANCES
Pavlovsky's mite
Ixodes pavlovskyi
was first discovered in the Russian Far East in the middle of the last century.
The range consists of two separated parts - eastern and western, located in the Far East and Western Siberia. In morphology, genetic characteristics and activity it is similar to the taiga tick. It serves as a carrier of the same infectious agents as the taiga tick, although their occurrence in these two types of ticks differs significantly (Rar et al
., 2017).
The movement of the Pavlovsky tick population to the north coincided with another phenomenon - the discovery of its hybrids with the taiga tick. Interspecific hybridization is a fairly common phenomenon among closely related species of ixodid ticks. However, in the vast majority of cases, these interspecific hybrids are not capable of reproduction. Thus, in Russia and Estonia, in places where the ranges of taiga and European forest ticks overlap, ticks with morphological and genetic characteristics of hybrids were found (Bugmyrin et al
., 2015).
However, the offspring obtained by laboratory crossing of these two species turned out to be infertile. The entire range of the Pavlovsky tick is located within the distribution area of the taiga tick, and molecular genetic analysis revealed ticks with a hybrid genotype in all habitats of the Pavlovsky tick in the Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions and the Altai Republic. In some places, the relative number of hybrids exceeded 30%, and among them there were hybrids of both the first and second generations (Kovalev et al
., 2015; Rar
et al
., 2019). All this suggests that these two types of ticks are capable of not only interbreeding, but also producing fertile offspring
Based on modeling of changes in climate and biotopes as a result of human activity, it was shown that in the 21st century. One can expect a reduction in the range of the taiga tick on the territory of states bordering Russia from the west, and by the end of the century this process will also take place in the European part of Russia (Yasyukevich, 2019). Presumably, in the Moscow region and the regions bordering it in the west and north-west, the taiga tick will disappear. A similar process will take place in areas to the south, where, due to climate warming, the forest will retreat, giving way to drier habitats.
At the same time, there are prerequisites for a significant expansion of the range of the taiga tick in the Kamchatka Territory and its appearance in the Magadan Region, and these forecasts are already beginning to come true. Thus, taiga ticks were recently discovered in the vicinity of Magadan (Dokuchaev, 2015). These ticks have been found on the Kamchatka Peninsula for quite a long time. At the same time, no larvae or nymphs were found there, which would be indirect evidence that in this territory the taiga tick can go through a full life cycle (according to the Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology in the Kamchatka Territory
"for 2019). Probably, the ticks are brought there by migratory birds.
