The lone star tick is no passive bystander when blood’s on the menu.
Illustration by Robert Meganck
Consider these two words: “larval bomb.” Now consider that those words represent a cluster of hundreds of pinpoint-tiny lone star ticks, all newly hatched, hungry for a meal, and hanging out on a leaf or blade of grass just waiting for some unsuspecting host—it could be you—to stroll by.
If you haven’t yet flung aside this story shrieking in horror, then meet Dr. Holly Gaff. An associate professor in the department of biological sciences at Old Dominion University and the field-lab director for the ODU tick research team, Gaff has spent a great deal of time doing what most of us would prefer to avoid: collecting ticks. In particular, a lot of lone star ticks.
Named for the whitish splotch found on the back of adult females (which supposedly reminded someone of a map of Texas), lone star ticks are very common throughout Virginia and the southeast, and their range appears to be spreading, according to recent research. They are typically found in wooded areas frequented by white tail deer, the ticks’ preferred host, where their three-year life cycle begins in late summer through early fall, when the ticks hatch.
Enter that larval bomb.
Sometimes referred to as seed ticks, “Lone star ticks as larvae come out as a mass,” says Gaff, and those masses that hatch together also feed together. And by “feed,” of course, we mean latch on to a host in hope of sucking some blood. Thus, to wander in the woods in late summer is to invite the prospect that, “You’ll look down and you’ll have 500 of your best friends crawling up your legs,” says Gaff.
On the bright (?) side, the ticks only have to feed once in each of their life stages; if they successfully manage their larval-year blood meal, they overwinter to become nymphs in the second year and—once again, if they feed successfully—adults in the third. But while the larvae must be content simply waiting for passing prey, the nymphs and adults dispense with that kind of passive and go full aggressive.
Possessing something like an incredibly sensitive nose on their front legs, called a Haller’s organ, lone star ticks can detect changes in carbon dioxide on the order of parts per trillion. “And they can sense that and come running,” says Gaff.
Literally. If you have the misfortune to sit down in the woods within 20 or 30 meters of a lone star tick, it can cross that distance in less than a minute. They are known as “pursuit ticks” says Gaff—or, as she likes to put it, “They will chase you down and take your lunch money.”
And there’s more. It’s not enough that these things are the arachnid velociraptors of the woodlands, hunting you for your blood. A bite from the lone star tick might also leave you with any one of several unsavory infectious diseases (although not Lyme, if that’s any consolation—that comes from the bite of the blacklegged tick), and likely with a spot that can itch maddeningly for weeks. “Those suckers can itch a lot,” says Gaff, with the authority of hard-won experience.
More recently, the lone star has been gaining attention for what sounds like a far-fetched plot hatched in the feverish imagination of a vegan novelist. In a remarkable piece of scientific detective work, Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills and a team of researchers in the division of asthma, allergy, and immunology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine determined that a lone star’s bite can lead to a potentially life-threatening allergy to red meat. The symptoms, which tend to be delayed by several hours from the time of meat consumption, may include nausea and vomiting as well as hives, itching, swelling, wheezing, and full-on anaphylaxis.
What can you say in favor of a parasite that not only feasts on your blood, but also can leave you with a life-threatening condition? If there were a competition for least-loved arthropod, surely the tick would be an odds-on favorite. But, Gaff admits a rough admiration for the sheer invincible tenacity of lone star ticks. She has tried freezing them. She has tried drowning them—virtually all survived more than 30 days submerged. And as for DEET repellant? “I have become convinced,” she says, “that, at least in the Hampton Roads area, they will drink DEET for breakfast.” (She recommends applying permethrin to your shoes and socks instead. It acts on ticks as a neurotoxin and will kill them in about an hour.) “Especially lone stars,” she says. “They are little tanks.”
This article originally appeared in our April 2019 issue.
