What the Pest Pros Say About Increasing Tick Numbers

This time on PEST PROSpectives, PEST PROS Associate Certified Entomologist Tony Sorrentino lays out where ticks hide in Michigan, how their life cycle works, and what you can do right now to protect your yard, your pets, and yourself. 

Episode Resources
Pest Pros of Michigan
Detroit Free Press: How to Protect Yourself from Ticks as Michigan Lyme Disease Surge

PEST PROSpectives is a Livemic Communications production.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Ticks Creep Us Out

Richard Piet 0:08

I'm Richard Pyatt. This is Pest Perspective. From the Pest Pros of Michigan, we're talking about all kinds of pests, things that you ought to know about the pests around you, and the approaches that the pest pros of Michigan take to send them on their way. Tony Sorrino's back with us in Ace Associate Certified Entomologist. Today we're talking about ticks. And, you know, Tony, I think ticks are on the creepier side of the insect realm just because they're a little sneaky and you can't just brush them away and they're gone. They hang on. In fact, almost a year ago, I had my own adventure with a tick, and it's kind of gross, you know? I was away visiting friends. We went on a hike on a trail, and the next morning, I was waking up in the morning and I happened to just pass my hand along the waistline, and I felt something there. And I jumped out of bed and I ran to the to the bathroom and took it off of me, which always sounds great, right? And this little guy was engorged. He'd been having a good old time, probably since the day before when I took that walk. You've probably heard lots of these stories.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

So many stories. I've heard so many stories about fully engorged ticks as big as a dime. Right where it happened to you is where it happens to everybody. They like that waistline spot, don't they? They like the top of the sock, the back of the knee, where the the fabric meets on the belt line. You'll have your shirt, you might have your shirt tucked in or not. But they're they're looking for that, and they they like to latch on right there, and well, they can latch on for hours and hours, feed to their fully engorged, and then fall off and or release, and then they they they go out and and do their go about their tick business.

Why Ticks Are Surging In Michigan

Richard Piet 2:21

Oh man. Well, this one was I think about done to the extent that when I took them off of me, I wasn't sure what I was looking at because he was so, you know, uh ballooned that uh I just wasn't sure. Are we hearing more about ticks in general or are there more of them?

Tick Life Cycle And Winter Survival

SPEAKER_00 2:42

It's it's both. Um population is is up in Michigan. Um, we've had banner years, and I know that's not a good thing, but we've had banner years for the tick population explosion in Michigan the last couple of years, and awareness of it is jumping up too, because people are noticing on their dogs, they're noticing on their kids. Outdoor enthusiasts are running into more situations where ticks are are posing a threat, and then deer and wildlife movement, um, expanding habitat, human development pushing into tick environments, that Michigan is now firmly a tick state, especially southwest lower Michigan. Firmly. Okay.

Richard Piet 3:24

How do they actually live? So you just started to talk about this the idea that they, you know, they want to latch on until they can't eat anymore, and then they uh want to release, but how long do they live?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Do they die after that? What happens? Um, the tick life cycle is roughly about two years. Um, eggs are laid in the spring. Um, larvae feed on mice and small mammals. That's when the disease vector happens too, is they have to be typically they have to be attached for so many hours before the disease will transmit back into the human host. The disease enters the cycle through rodents, and the nymphal stage is when they have the highest risk to humans. They go through a metamorphosis where as larval stages they only have six legs. And then as they transform into adults, they eventually end up on the the same scale as as spiders with eight-legged adults.

Richard Piet 4:26

All right, and they can live two years. So in Michigan, they'll overwinter if they find the right place?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yep, they they definitely do. They'll enter a state of like near diapause where um that's the hibernation, where the hemolymph slows down and they don't die in the in the winter, and then when it warms back up, the little feet start to kick in.

Where Ticks Hide Around Yards

Richard Piet 4:50

And away we go. Away we go. Diapause. I presume that's P-A-U-S-E. Not P-A-W-S. Got it. Okay. So where in uh where are we really encountering them? Like I was walking in the woods uh on a path, so sort of, so I presume they're pretty common there, places like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

It's not deep woods most of the time, yard edges, fence lines, um, landscaping beds, leaf litter. Underneath decks, transition zones between the the the woods and your lawn, where that that tall grass is leaning up over and into the yard, the smaller nymphal stage ticks will go up onto those long pieces of grass and they just put their their tarsal claws out and they'll wait for a host to walk by and they grab on and then they gotcha.

Do Ticks Drop From Trees

Richard Piet 5:45

Oh man. I uh didn't want to think about it too much in my case. But when you do, the notion that that could have happened, right? I'm walking on this path, and I'm walking with one of my friends who she is like a rocket. So I'm trying to keep up with her. I was not lingering and sl in a slow pace. We were moving. Yeah, and so I got to thinking maybe it dropped down from a tree or something. Do they do that?

Tick Checks And Safe Removal

SPEAKER_00 6:14

In nature, no niche goes underexploited. Yeah. So if they can drop on you and get the same kind of effect, I think it would be more of a a drop in a bucket, so to speak, rather than an active form. I don't know for sure that they they drop onto people, but I know that as we walk past and there's always that tall grass along the sides of the path that we're walking on, you brush past it and don't think anything. Seed ticks, the nymphal stages are very, very, very small. They they typically feed on mice, the first instar for ticks. They feed on mice at first, and that's where they pick up some of the vectors for disease. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And then they will feed and then drop off. They're obligate blood feeders. Um, they have to have a blood meal to advance to the next life stage. They have to have a blood meal to create the proteins necessary to create the eggs. So it's it blood is part of their life cycle. They're ambush hunters there, let's call it that.

Richard Piet 7:16

Well, I got ambushed and he got a pretty good meal out of me. So there you go. What can homeowners realistically do to reduce the risk around their own properties for ticks, particularly folks with pets, right? They're quite concerned that uh an animal that spends a lot of time in the yard is going to be exposed.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Tick checks. I use a fine-toothed comb on my dog when my dog goes outside. I'll I'll run through the underbelly, the armpits, the backs of the ears. Make sure that there's nothing small or large. We have merchandise that we give out to our clients, especially like our clients that have mosquito flea and tick services. Um, it's just a tick card. It's got a little magnifying glass so you can see what you're looking at. It's got two different pullers on it. So if you got a small tick, you got a tooth for that, and there's a large, a larger tooth for if you got an adult or like the one on your back, that big one.

Richard Piet 8:10

Boy, I I didn't wait for a tool to come along and do that. I was just gonna get this thing off of me. But I I really wasn't sure and I couldn't quite see. So I just did it. But typically, as you're pointing out, there are tools you can use because they clasp on, don't they?

Yard Treatments That Reduce Ticks

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Well, they they latch on, they have a lancet in their mouth part, is a piercing, sucking mouth part. Yeah. And it's barbed in reverse, so it's very difficult to pull that out. Oh, well. So when they they go in for the kill, they go in to get their blood meal and they push that lancet through the skin. Um, there's a mild anesthetic in the saliva that they produce, so you don't feel it right away. And then they have all the time in the world if they're in the back of my knee or my armpit or my belt on my back where I'm not seeing them, and they've got time to sit there and be there and do what they do. How about that?

Richard Piet 9:08

A little anesthetic that they give you so you don't even feel it. They're pesky, these guys. Okay. Uh, so uh is there uh a treatment of some kind that you can put down that might help deter them?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, absolutely. Um, our mosquito flea and tick service is targeted to those harborage areas, the edge-focused applications and recurring seasonal treatments between April and October can help dramatically reduce tick population on the property.

Richard Piet 9:42

All right. And when you talk about inspecting your pets, yourself, that means every time they go out and come back in?

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Every single time. Yeah. If you got outdoor cats, cats are especially susceptible dogs because they're gonna run through that high grass, they're gonna go right where the same other prey, the other mammals, the mammalian prey that they latch onto, deers, rabbits, other small wildlife creatures, they're there to to the so when my dog or my cat runs through there, it's just another blood host. When me or you run through there, you're just another blood host. If there's food there, they'll share. They don't care.

Michigan Species And New Tick Threats

Richard Piet 10:25

All right. Sounds like me at the buffet line, but I get it. Got it. Anything that we should remember as we wrap up about ticks, anything you want people to have that sticks in their mind about them?

SPEAKER_00 10:40

There are multiple different ticks in Michigan. Um, the primary one that we see is black-legged deer tick. The American dog tick is another prevalent species that we see, and we have been seeing um lone star ticks emerging in into Michigan. Um, that one's associated with a red meat allergy called Alpha Gale, and it's an indicator of changing ecology in our in our region where the winters up to this winter have been a little milder, and there's more room for exotic species to make their way into Michigan.

Richard Piet 11:16

Okay, that's interesting. We're a long way from the lone star state, so that's a long way to go, but all they have to do is latch on.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

All they have to do, all they have to do is make it here, and the most of the year it's it's it's good enough for them. But being mindful of the the deer tick is the black leg deer tick is um the one that you get Lyme disease from.

Richard Piet 11:38

I was just gonna bring that up. Yeah. And so not all of them carry that.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Not all of them carry, but species specific, there are different vectors that are associated with with different kinds of ticks. Like um with Lyme disease, the tick has to be attached to you for six to eight hours. Yeah. So overnight, just what happened to you was long enough for you. If if it had been a carrier, then you have the potentiality of picking that up and just being mindful of vector-borne illness. Absolutely.

Lyme Risk Timing And Closing

Richard Piet 12:11

Yeah. So now you see the importance of inspecting regularly if you've been out in some of those areas that Tony talks about or your pet has. This is uh important information. All right, these are the things we talk about on pest perspectives, and we invite you to subscribe. If you found us, guess what? There's more. So look for us where you get podcasts and subscribe, and you'll be alerted when these new episodes come down. By the way, you might be listening by way of the PestPros website. Lots of good information there and ways to reach out to the Pest Pros of Michigan to ask your own questions or set up your own consultations about whatever pests might be pesting around you. So check it out at the Pest Pros website. Meanwhile, Tony, we'll be back again soon. Thanks, Richard. Have a great one. Tony Sorrentino, one of the Pest Pros of Michigan here on Pest Prospectives.