Tick longevity

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 Flinticus 25 Aug 2021

How long can they survive on camping items?

Say I put away my backpack and sleeping bag after a wild camp. There's a possibility that either or both could harbour ticks.

I just removed one from my arm that must have come off my sleeping mat, as it only appeared after carrying the mat downstairs to air in the garden and inspect. Little f$cker's gone on a one way ride down U bend avenue.

OP Flinticus 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

Also, are they more numerous this year...

Past 15 years in the hills = 1 tick

This year (and far less outdoors than most) = 2 so far

3
 Heike 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

15 years - one tick..? We get loads every time  we go out  in Scotland. In most unpleasant places, too I will spare you the details, but one really nasty one was between the eyelashes of my then baby son (11 years ago). Needed 3 people to get it out...One to hold the head, one to hold the body still and one to use the tweezers. 

I don't think they are getting worse, they have always been a nightmare

 girlymonkey 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

I am normally a tick magnet but I have only had 1 this year. I think it can just be your luck sometimes.

OP Flinticus 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Heike:

Sounds like the structure of a joke...

How many people does in take to get a tick off a baby?

Three. One to hold the tweezers...

Don't you just hate the wee things? Well, I do so I assume everyone does!  I always wear trousers when out. This trip I was flicking them off my legs quite a bit, big ticks and really small ones.

....that bite is itchy!

 SouthernSteve 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

Ticks can last a long time. Ixodes ricinus have a three year life cycle (3 stages). An adult female will lay hundreds or perhaps thousands of eggs.

  • Unfed larvae will survive for 13–19 months
  • Unfed nymphs for 24 months 
  • and unfed adults for 21-31 months

These figures are highly dependent on temperature and humidity. Such horrible creatures!

OP Flinticus 25 Aug 2021
In reply to SouthernSteve:

Satan's tears! 

Hopefully dry conditions will reduce that time??

 SouthernSteve 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

We have investigated a couple of cases of suspected brown dog tick - these live in the house properly!  Fortunately on both occasions the fears were unfounded although they has been reported as imports into the UK (see below). 

Hansford, K. M., et al. (2017). "Rhipicephalus sanguineus importation into the UK: surveillance, risk, public health awareness and One Health response." Vet Rec 180(5): 119.

 ScraggyGoat 25 Aug 2021
In reply to SouthernSteve:

I picked up one that I’m fairly sure resided in a unused sleeping bag for six months.

 Dan Arkle 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

I'd suggest what they are doing in mountain huts to kill bedbugs.

Microwave your sleeping bag if you suspect infection. A minute should be enough to fry any ticks without hurting the down.

I don't think I'd risk it on a mat though.

Post edited at 13:17
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 AllanMac 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

Warm days in the hills are ruined by ticks when trousers have to be tucked into socks, shirt tucked into trousers, sleeves rolled down and shirt zipped up to the top. And the rest covered in stinking repellent. Wearing shorts and T shirt is a thing of the past.

I blame the shooting estates who keep deer in artificially high numbers so that wealthy, lazy 'sportsmen' can blow the brains out of at least one, and go home satisfied. These people need to learn to work a lot harder for their kill, on the basis of a proper cull within a naturally occurring, sustainable deer population - one that would aim towards the approximate kill numbers of natural predators like wolves and lynx. Tick numbers would then be vastly reduced.

The other important advantage would be regeneration of the Caledonian pine forest. As it it is now, young trees have no chance at all in the Highlands, unless areas are fenced off to exclude deer (and walkers), creating an unnaturally sharp boundary between what the Highlands could be (and how it was in the past), and what it clearly hasn't been since Victorian times.

3
 PaulJepson 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Dan Arkle:

Or tumble-dry. They need to be in a pretty humid environment so it doesn't take a high-heat cycle to kill em.

 Heike 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

Hahaha! True

They are simply horrible. I found the best thing nowadays is to look at your trousers after walking in/out and wipe the wee buggers off!  Saves you a few bites, but still some get through and after a couple of days you find some nasties...Even if you had a shower, I think they cling on to hair..?

Post edited at 13:41
 SFM 25 Aug 2021
In reply to AllanMac:

It's an interesting point as I see many many more deer when I'm out in the hills compared to the 80's and 90's.

Any time I've covered by legs in Smidge I've noticed hardly any ticks. Anyone else noticed this or is it just pot luck not to have run through a tick festival on those days?

OP Flinticus 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Dan Arkle:

Sounds dodgy.

Metal zip. Plastic toggles. Too big for our 1980s microwave anyway. 

OP Flinticus 25 Aug 2021
In reply to SFM:

Hmmm Smidge you say.

I had that on my face to ward off midges which were not a problem at all, at least until I was back at the car next morning under a cloud inversion with no wind. 

Andy Gamisou 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Heike:

Tick collars seem to work fairly well on dogs (at least in my experience).  Wonder why there isn't something similar for humans?  Or is there?

OP Flinticus 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Andy Gamisou:

No, though I read somewhere meds are in development. Previously wasn't the commercial market for it but seems ticks are spreading across the US

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/ticks-spreading-across...

 fmck 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

My dog picked up ticks in February near Tignabruach about 7 years ago. I thought they were only out in the summer but a check on google shows this is not the case.

 Mal Grey 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

My mate Ade decided to air his dry suit by laying it inside-out on squashed grass by the side of Loch Shiel one paddling trip. By the time we (sniggering) pointed out that deer had probably caused the compressed grass and that all our bags were covered in tick nymphs, it was too late. Despite hanging it in a tree and battering it, for the rest of that trip Ade kept getting tick bites during the day when wearing it.

He then took it home and we regularly blame him for the large increase in ticks in the south east of England since 2014.

Doesn't answer the question but I have a horrible feeling that they little buggers will survive a long time in a bag of slightly damp outdoor clothing so we should probably think about that when getting home and opening stuff.

 FactorXXX 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Dan Arkle:

> Microwave your sleeping bag if you suspect infection. A minute should be enough to fry any ticks without hurting the down.
> I don't think I'd risk it on a mat though.

How about the dog?
Though I might need to get a bigger microwave as there's barely room for a cat in my current one.

 bruxist 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

From the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's blog today: "Over the past year, we've noticed a real increase in tick bites among our reserve teams which we put down to the combination of warm and wet weather [...] I estimate I’ve had three times as many ticks on me in the last 18 months after enjoying the countryside, when compared to the last 40 years."

https://www.ywt.org.uk/blog/david-craven/be-tick-aware-summer

 SouthernSteve 25 Aug 2021
In reply to bruxist:

Ticks are on the increase across the UK according to a number of surveys and a number of years. Climate change has been suggested as a cause, but as suggested above deer numbers have been implicated as a major cause.

 C Witter 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

I find tick populations tend to be located in specific locations. E.g. Warton Crag (small hill in Silverdale, South Lakes) is full of ticks and one time my partner had about 80 tiny nymphs on her leggings. 50:50 I'll see ticks at Warton in the summer. All of the Silverdale AONB contains some, and occasionally I pick up one elsewhere, e.g. I've had them at the Fairy Steps, nearby. Meanwhile, I've only had perhaps one or two elsewhere in the Lake District in many, many trips.

In short: if you find a really ticky place, stay away during the summer.

 Wee Davie 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

Tick resistance must be my only superpower. I've never had one, while others I've been around have been bitten to feck.

 Wee Davie 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

Unfortunately not applicable to either midges or clegs.

 abbeywall 25 Aug 2021
In reply to Heike:

glad it is not just me that keeps finding them several days after total body check, shower and change of clothes.  Yup think they manage to hang on in hair.

tick removers needed at all times!

 Cog 25 Aug 2021
In reply to AllanMac:

> I blame the shooting estates who keep deer in artificially high numbers  

I blame mild winters.

Deer (and humans) aren’t the only prey.

What about rabbit, hedgehog, squirrel and numerous other animals including puffin.

3
 Kean 26 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

Interesting stuff here about ticks: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/podcasts/naked-scientists-podcast/lyme-d...

It includes an interview with an expert from a UK university, during which he says: "I, for example, have spent a very pleasurable afternoon checking for ticks on a headless legless roe deer in Kildow. And when we got to about 15,000, we gave up and went to the pub."

That answers one of the questions I had about ticks: how can they so thoroughly infest an area which is apparently devoid of wildlife? I can just imagine this poor anaemic beast, wandering through a climbing area, shedding ticks by the dozen.

OP Flinticus 26 Aug 2021
In reply to Kean:

I hope most of those attached to the corpse after it had died.

I've always wondered too how they survive. Same with midges. So many yet seemingly not much creatures.

 PaulJepson 26 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

They're attracted to prey by their carbon dioxide aren't they? Would a tick bother biting a dead animal?

They've been on the up for a while in the eastern US: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/150601-ghost-moose-anima...

I saw a dead moose near the top of Mount Moosilauke when I was there in 2016; it seemed to have suffered a similar fate and I heard from others that it had been slowly dying in-situ for several days. 

OP Flinticus 26 Aug 2021
In reply to PaulJepson:

Well, seems they won't feed on dead animals anyway as the blood clots and proteins break down. 

 AllanMac 26 Aug 2021
In reply to Cog:

Yes, mild winters, but why are we getting so many of them now? Some would argue that part of the reason is the rapidly declining tree cover in many parts of the world (which includes a once densely forested Scotland), negatively affecting climate stability. 

There is a complexity of cause and effect going on here (of which tick proliferation is one small part). Deer numbers are proportionate to the increasing ease of access and lucrative economy of bloodsports. Ticks are potential disease vectors responding to those variations, adversely affecting the animals you mention, including humans. Over-proliferation of grazing animals (with no predation to stabilise numbers), is bad news for native vegetation cover. Depleted vegetation cover destabilises fragile upland substrates, causing gullying, landslips and flooding which in itself is on the increase due to climate change. So you can see there are a number of ecological negative feedback loops going on. The increase in tick populations is indirectly down to human activity.

This can be halted in its tracks by the introduction of predators. A remarkable and rapid trophic cascade took place in Yellowstone National Park merely by releasing a wolf pack, which kept elk numbers down to sustainable levels, enabling the depleted landscape to recover across the board. Trees were able to grow, stabilising riverbank and upland soils, beavers built dams slowing the rivers down, the understorey grew thicker giving cover for small mammals, and the population of pollinators grew. All this because of a few wolves. Watch this video narrated by George Monbiot:

youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q&

I find this incredible and heartening to think that nature can recover so beautifully and rapidly.

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 SFM 27 Aug 2021
In reply to Kean:

This is more serious than I thought if the ticks are having the legs and head off a deer! How big are these buggers?

 skog 28 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

Off topic, but I'm most of the way up Sgorr nam Fiannaidh (Aonach Eagach) from Loch Achtriochtan, and I've never seen so many ticks in Glencoe. I've picked well over a hundred off my trousers so far, mostly tiny ones. Wishing I'd gone up one of the paths, now!

There are deer keds too, as a bonus. 😑

Ain't Scotland great?

In reply to Heike:

I think the key to keeping ticks off is to check one's arms, feet, legs and clothing continually while walking, particularly after passing through long grass or bushes, and also at frequent rest stops; also checking back-packs etc. This way I usually spot them before they get their heads stuck in. With practice, one can also spot ticks on blades and stems of grass. Much more difficult is keeping ticks off dogs, because one can not continually check them in this way. My last dogs were forever picking up multiple ticks, whenever it was tick season. Because they were very hairy dogs - Golden Retrievers - this required very careful checking and combing when they got back home. Often the ticks had made their way up to the areas behind their ears. The buggers also tend to swim uphill on the hairs on human bodies, (amazing that they can often do this without one noticing), so one must also check the top of ones' shoes or boots carefully, because they sometimes hide there before starting their journeys.

Post edited at 12:56
 Holdtickler 28 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

I know the usually start to be a problem around May but when do they die back?

 summo 29 Aug 2021
In reply to AllanMac:

I agree with your thoughts on Highland estates, forest etc..  but it won't stop ticks. They are rife in Scandinavia, nature's survivors, +30c, -25c and below, wet or dry, they have optimum conditions, but can cope with anything. 

The warm blooded animal count is likely less in the Scottish Highlands than the nordics, kg per hectare, you just don't see all the different animals because of the forest.  

 timparkin 29 Aug 2021
In reply to Flinticus:

Permethrin is the only thing I've seen that kills them on contact. Smidge discourages them. DEET probably works but I'd rather use get bitten than use DEET again (ruined a good camera a while back with DEET)

You can buy Craghoppers trousers (and other clothing) which has been chemically treated with permethrin and that lasts through many washes and is guaranteed for the lifetime of the garment. I use permethrin liquid but be careful of cats as you're applying it as it's really, really bad for them. Once dried they're safe even if they subsequently get wet. I also apply it to my socks and spray the tops of my boots. 

Tim

 Dr.S at work 29 Aug 2021
In reply to summo:

Indeed - my worst personal tick haul was on a wooded island in the Stockholm archipelago.

 McHeath 29 Aug 2021
In reply to timparkin:

> I use permethrin liquid but be careful of cats as you're applying it as it's really, really bad for them. Once dried they're safe even if they subsequently get wet. 

I always try to keep my cats dry. 

 geordiepie 30 Aug 2021
In reply to timparkin:

Long socks or calf sleeves treated with permethrin has kept me tick free this year and I usually get more than my fair share

 timparkin 30 Aug 2021
In reply to McHeath:

> I always try to keep my cats dry. 

<tee hee>


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