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Amblyomma americanum
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Amblyomma americanum
Amblyomma americanum, also known as the lone star tick, northeastern water tick, turkey tick, and cricker tick, is a type of tick indigenous to much of the eastern United States and Mexico that bites painlessly and commonly goes unnoticed, remaining attached to its host for as long as seven days until it is fully engorged with blood. It bites aggressively, and its larvae may transfer themselves to skin from discarded clothing that is put back on. The sexually dimorphic adult female lone star tick bears a silvery-white, somewhat star-shaped spot near the center of the posterior portion of its dorsal shield (scutum); adult males conversely have varied white streaks or spots around the margins of their shields.
It is to this spot, not to Texas, that A. americanum owes the name lone star tick, while it owes the name turkey tick to the wild turkeys that are a common host in its immature stages in some Midwestern U.S. states. It is the primary vector of Ehrlichia chaffeensis, which causes human monocytic ehrlichiosis, and Ehrlichia ewingii, which causes human and canine granulocytic ehrlichiosis. Its bite may also cause a human to develop alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to non-catarrhine mammalian meat. Other disease-causing bacterial agents isolated from lone star ticks include Francisella tularensis, Rickettsia amblyommii, and Coxiella burnetti.
The lone star tick is widely distributed across the East, Southeast, and Midwest United States. It lives in wooded areas, particularly in second-growth forests with thick underbrush, where white-tailed deer (the primary host of mature ticks) reside. Lone star ticks can also be found in ecotonal areas (transition zones between different biomes) such as those between forest and grassland ecosystems. The lone star tick uses thick underbrush or high grass to attach to its host by way of questing, that is, climbing up a blade of grass or to the edges of leaves, stretching its front legs forward, and—in response to stimuli from biochemicals such as carbon dioxide, heat, and vibration from movement—mounting a passing host as it brushes against the tick's legs. Once attached to its host, the tick will move around and select a preferred feeding site.
The tick has also been reported outside of its range in Canada, in areas of Southern Ontario, including in London, Wellington County, and the Region of Waterloo.
The lone star tick develops through four life stages: egg, six-legged larva, eight-legged nymph, and adult. Like many hard ticks, it is a three-host tick: the larva, nymph, and adult each take a blood meal, usually on a separate host, before dropping off to molt or reproduce.
All mobile stages participate in questing, a host-seeking behavior in which ticks wait on vegetation or leaf litter with their front legs extended, and attach when a host brushes past. After hatching, the larva undergo a quiescent (resting) period, followed by pursuit of a host via questing. Feeding for one to three days, the blood-engorged larave dislodge to digest their blood meal, and molt into nymphs. The nymph repeats this pattern, finding another host before dropping off and molting into an adult.
Mating occurs on the host animal after adult males and females have attached. The male feeds first, often taking repeated small blood meals, then detaches and moves across the host surface to find females. Males may mate repeatedly on the same host, while fertilized females continue feeding until fully engorged. After its final blood meal, the female drops to the ground and lays a single egg mass, typically consisting of several thousand eggs, and dies shortly after oviposition.
Fully engorged females can weigh several hundred milligrams, with one report using white-tailed deer as hosts finding a mean weight of about 0.63 g and a mean production of 5,873 eggs per female. Eggs are typically laid in late spring to early summer. Incubation varies with temperature and habitat conditions. In one field study, eggs in meadow habitat hatched after about 31–67 days in 1973 and 40–55 days in 1974, supporting a general incubation period of roughly one to two months under warm-season field conditions.
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Amblyomma americanum
Amblyomma americanum, also known as the lone star tick, northeastern water tick, turkey tick, and cricker tick, is a type of tick indigenous to much of the eastern United States and Mexico that bites painlessly and commonly goes unnoticed, remaining attached to its host for as long as seven days until it is fully engorged with blood. It bites aggressively, and its larvae may transfer themselves to skin from discarded clothing that is put back on. The sexually dimorphic adult female lone star tick bears a silvery-white, somewhat star-shaped spot near the center of the posterior portion of its dorsal shield (scutum); adult males conversely have varied white streaks or spots around the margins of their shields.
It is to this spot, not to Texas, that A. americanum owes the name lone star tick, while it owes the name turkey tick to the wild turkeys that are a common host in its immature stages in some Midwestern U.S. states. It is the primary vector of Ehrlichia chaffeensis, which causes human monocytic ehrlichiosis, and Ehrlichia ewingii, which causes human and canine granulocytic ehrlichiosis. Its bite may also cause a human to develop alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to non-catarrhine mammalian meat. Other disease-causing bacterial agents isolated from lone star ticks include Francisella tularensis, Rickettsia amblyommii, and Coxiella burnetti.
The lone star tick is widely distributed across the East, Southeast, and Midwest United States. It lives in wooded areas, particularly in second-growth forests with thick underbrush, where white-tailed deer (the primary host of mature ticks) reside. Lone star ticks can also be found in ecotonal areas (transition zones between different biomes) such as those between forest and grassland ecosystems. The lone star tick uses thick underbrush or high grass to attach to its host by way of questing, that is, climbing up a blade of grass or to the edges of leaves, stretching its front legs forward, and—in response to stimuli from biochemicals such as carbon dioxide, heat, and vibration from movement—mounting a passing host as it brushes against the tick's legs. Once attached to its host, the tick will move around and select a preferred feeding site.
The tick has also been reported outside of its range in Canada, in areas of Southern Ontario, including in London, Wellington County, and the Region of Waterloo.
The lone star tick develops through four life stages: egg, six-legged larva, eight-legged nymph, and adult. Like many hard ticks, it is a three-host tick: the larva, nymph, and adult each take a blood meal, usually on a separate host, before dropping off to molt or reproduce.
All mobile stages participate in questing, a host-seeking behavior in which ticks wait on vegetation or leaf litter with their front legs extended, and attach when a host brushes past. After hatching, the larva undergo a quiescent (resting) period, followed by pursuit of a host via questing. Feeding for one to three days, the blood-engorged larave dislodge to digest their blood meal, and molt into nymphs. The nymph repeats this pattern, finding another host before dropping off and molting into an adult.
Mating occurs on the host animal after adult males and females have attached. The male feeds first, often taking repeated small blood meals, then detaches and moves across the host surface to find females. Males may mate repeatedly on the same host, while fertilized females continue feeding until fully engorged. After its final blood meal, the female drops to the ground and lays a single egg mass, typically consisting of several thousand eggs, and dies shortly after oviposition.
Fully engorged females can weigh several hundred milligrams, with one report using white-tailed deer as hosts finding a mean weight of about 0.63 g and a mean production of 5,873 eggs per female. Eggs are typically laid in late spring to early summer. Incubation varies with temperature and habitat conditions. In one field study, eggs in meadow habitat hatched after about 31–67 days in 1973 and 40–55 days in 1974, supporting a general incubation period of roughly one to two months under warm-season field conditions.
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