Here's another reminder to be careful with ticks... Lyme Disease is bad,
but Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever can kill you in a week or so. If you go
to a doctor for a summer 'flu', be sure to mention if you've been bitten
by a tick!

UNC Swimmer Dies From Tick Bite
http://www.wral.com/news/2237649/detail.html

Will Cook wrote:
Welcome to the South. :-) Lone Star Tick may be our most common species
here. It very rarely carries Lyme disease, but does carry a closely
related Lyme-like illness called southern tick-associated rash (STAR).
The most common tick disease around here is Rocky Mountain Spotted
Fever, which is about 30% fatal if untreated (3-5% if treated), so go to
a doctor if you get a fever and headache in the summer, especially if
you know you've been bitten by a tick.

Here's a list of our common ticks and the diseases they carry:

Amblyomma americanum (L.) - Lone Star Tick
Borrelia lonestari - southern tick-associated rash illness
(http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/stari/)
Ehrlichia spp. - human monocytic ehrlichiosis (HME), human
granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE)
(http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/ehrlichia/)

Ixodes scapularis Say - Black-legged Tick
Borrelia burgdorferi - Lyme disease
(http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/)
Babesia microti - Babesiosis
(http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/babesia/)

Dermacentor variabilis (Say) - American Dog Tick
Rickettsia rickettsii, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
(http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rmsf/)

The longer the tick is attached, the higher likelihood it will transmit
a disease, so do tick checks often!

Will


Joy in Durham wrote:

Now for a scary sighting...

I thought I was seeing things this morning, but no, there it was, a
lone star tick crawling up a pants leg. I wasn't wearing it at the
time as the pants were thrown over a rack in my room. It must have
latched on somewhere from a recent hike on the Eno River, or out in
the garden? Has anyone else seen these recently?

I had never seen this type of tick before. Very distinctive. The long
probiscious (sp?) sticks out from the body and it has that dot of
silver on the back. I found a link that shows the difference between
the lone star and more common dog tick. A good photograph for anyone
interested.

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/imagegal/...fanddvarf.html
Sorry, I did NOT save the tick.
Joy in Durham