They’re more generalist feeders that will latch onto humans and pets, while soft ticks are more commonly relegated to wildlife. When you think of the ticks you find crawling on your dog or your ankles, you’re thinking of hard ticks. Soft ticks lack the hard plate and look more like tiny, oval-shaped pillows. “But certainly not to the extent that we’re encountering these hard ticks like the American dog tick, the black-legged tick, and the Lone Star tick.” “It’s not to say you can’t encounter soft ticks, because of course people can and do,” Dill tells Outdoor Life. That soft material also allows female ticks to get much bigger while engorged, Dill says. In females, however, it might only cover the upper half of their back, while the lower half is made of a softer material that’s more flexible for carrying eggs. In males, this plate, which is called a scutum, covers their whole back. Hard ticks have a shell-like plate that resembles a backpack or a shield and sits right behind their mouths, giving them the classic pear or teardrop shape. Hard ticks differ from soft ticks in their basic construction. Mat Pound / USDA Agricultural Research Service Soft ticks, like this spinose ear tick, lack the hard plate on the back that hard ticks have. In fact, if you were to Google an image of a soft tick, you would encounter a small, mite-looking bug that you’ve likely never seen before. Dill says that most of us will only ever interact with hard ticks. Soft TicksĮven the most experienced outdoorsmen might not know that there are two primary categories of ticks out there: hard ticks and soft ticks. ![]() Depending on the tick species, this whole process can take two to three years. Once full, they drop off to lay an egg mass, which can contain as many as 4,000 individual eggs, depending on the tick size and species. Adult females eagerly attack humans and larger animals in order to engorge themselves with blood. Once the nymphs have fed for a few days, they will drop off to molt again and become adults. While both nymphs and larvae are very small, larvae only have six legs, while nymphs are larger and have eight legs (like the adults). Once the larvae have fed for a few days (usually on the smallest animals, like birds or mice), they drop off and molt into nymphs. After spending part of their life cycle on small animals, they often acquire pathogens, some of which cause disease in humans and other animals. In the first spring, tick larvae emerge from their eggs and, depending on the species, they may or may not be disease carriers at this early stage. While life cycles are species-specific, ticks tend to grow and find hosts to feed on in the spring and summer before going inactive during the late fall and winter. These crab-like arthropods have four life stages (egg, larvae, nymph, and adult) and most ticks prefer to find a different host animal at each stage of life. ![]() “They don’t have any specific affinity for one host versus another.” The life cycle of a tick. “A lot of these types of ticks are generalist feeders that are willing to feed on whatever wanders past,” says Griffin Dill, the Tick Lab coordinator for the University of Maine’s Diagnostic and Research Laboratory. While it can feel like ticks target us humans far too often, ticks will actually feed on most living animals, including birds, mammals, reptiles, and even a few amphibians. That’s why it’s important to be able to identify the types of ticks that live in your area. Outdoorsmen and women are particularly at risk, but even folks who don’t go outside much can pick up ticks in their yard or from their dogs. From New England and the northern reaches of Canada to the American Southwest, everyone needs to be on the lookout for ticks, which can carry serious diseases. ![]() ![]() There are many different types of ticks that have adapted for a variety of climates, and they continue adapting and expanding their range amid climate change. If it seems like ticks are everywhere these days, that’s because they are. A black legged tick, also known as a deer tick.
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