“Ixodes scapularis is “extremely catholic with its taste for blood.” It will feed on both migrating birds and big mammals that cover wide ranges — helping it expand its territory — and it’s also delighted to encounter a human and her dog. In tick-borne disease literature, the blacklegged tick is almost universally described as ‘aggressive.’
“The knowledge that this tick is proliferating in the most densely populated areas of North America, potentially spreading not just Lyme disease but anaplasmosis and babesiosis, an infection that resembles malaria, is disturbing in ways that it feels as though we have not yet grasped.”
Photo by Eamon Mac Mahon, Guelph, 2019.