Monster Hyalomma tick spotted in the Netherlands

Central Mass ticks and tick-borne illnesses are a hot topic. Between dog ticks, black-legged ticks, and deer ticks, we have enough to worry about with regard to tick-borne diseases. This monster tick will make you glad that you live in Central MA!

The Hyalomma tick is said to have originated in Iran or the southern part of the former Soviet Union, and it’s making its way throughout parts of Europe, which have not before seen it. Two Hylomma ticks have recently been identified in the Netherlands. I call it a monster tick for a few reasons.

montster tick — *Can you imagine a monster lurking in the Central MA woods?*

Reason #1 the Hyalomma tick is a monster

The size of the Hyalomma tick is literally monster-size! This thirsty blood-sucker is about twice the size of more common ticks in the Netherlands – measuring 1/5″ until it feeds, at which time it measures over 1/2″. We have discussed some nymph ticks that are native to our area, which are about the size of a poppy seed. Can you imagine encountering this big guy?

Hyalomma tick vs sheep tick size — *Take a look at the size difference in a Hyalomma tick versus the sheep tick.*

The second reason I call this tick a monster

Since the Hyalomma tick is native to regions with harsh-desert environmental conditions with few hosts available on which to feed, it has adapted in a truly unusual way. This monster tick will literally chase its host to get its blood meal!

Found in woodlands, dunes, gardens, and meadows, Hyalomma ticks sense body heat, vibrations, or scents of hosts when nearby, and run towards the host to feed on their blood. It is said that they will stalk their hosts for up to 10 minutes, and travel hundreds of feet.

The third reason these ticks are monsters

As with our Central MA native ticks, the Hyalomma tick is a disease carrier and spreader. Most commonly, they spread spotted fever to humans and Equine Piroplasmosis (EP) to horses. Though, they have tested negative for Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, common to agricultural workers in eastern Eurpoe, the Mediterranean, parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Protect your family from Central Mass ticks and the diseases they carry with effective tick control measures

Dave Macchia, tick control enthusiast — Dave Macchia, Central Mass tick control enthusiast

While we have not yet be invaded by the monster Hyalomma tick, the ticks that are commonly found here in Central Mass are still monstrous in their own rights. They threaten the health of our families with nasty tick-borne illnesses, such as Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and Babesiosis. As always, your best bet at protection is with total professional Central Mass tick control.

This is is not science fiction: ravenous, self-cloning tick invading the US

This might sound like a sci-fi summer movie, but it’s real life for US residents now. The Asian longhorned tick is feeding on America’s wildlife and livestock – and it’s the scariest tick you ever heard of!

Warmer wintertime temperatures are allowing ticks to live longer in the United States, and that includes accidentally-imported ticks, such as the Asian self-cloning tick that I have been reading about.

Reputable tick control companies are now offering tick tube programs, which effectively eliminate ticks by-proxy through nesting efforts of mice in the “off season.” Mice will create their nests with cotton that has been treated to kill ticks. The cotton does not hurt the mice, but when a tick bites one of the mice, who have nested with this treated cotton, it receives a lethal dose of the tick control treatment. These extra measures are becoming commonplace measures in the Central Mass fight against these blood-sucking invaders, including the Asian longhorned tick that has us more worried than ever about effective tick protection.

What’s so scary about the Asian longhorned tick?

Not only does this thirsty tick having cloning abilities – females can reproduce without a male – but these tick clone armies are killing livestock by blood loss! A recent report of young bull in Surry County, NC, who was covered with one thousand longhorned ticks, was drained of his blood supply, causing acute anemia (usually associated with hemorrhaging). If this doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will!

longhorned ticks

This deadly, self-cloning tick was first reported in the United States in 2017, and has since been identified in at least 10 US states, including: North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Arkansas. It’s likely already in other states too, including Massachusetts, but just has not yet been reported and identified!

Asian longhorned ticks

Longhorned ticks also spread diseases!

Though their cloning abilities and blood-sucking capabilities are the scariest bits about this hungry Asian import, the longhorned tick is known to spread tick-borne illnesses, such as Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted fever.

The good news is that these thirsty tick-clone armies are eliminated with the same Central Mass tick control treatments used to kill other ticks! I recommend protecting your home and family year-round with professional tick protection measures, including a tick control program! An effective tick control spray can be applied to your property, eliminating ticks on contact, and continuing to work for up to three weeks – killing up to 95% of the ticks in and around your property.

Ticks are much like Game of Thrones’ Night King!

Ticks are no good for ANYONE. They prey on our families, our pets, and even our livestock. Will you be stuck trying to remove a tick from yourself or a loved one this year, and hope that said tick has not left devastation behind?

As we inch towards the series finale of Game of Thrones, I started thinking about how I might compare Central Mass ticks to the once-feared, mysterious Night King. Here are some comparisons between the two!

Central Mass ticks and the Night King are u-g-l-y, and they ain’t got no alibi!

Most obvious of all, the Night King is hideous and scary looking. The same can be said of ticks! Not only are ticks gross on the outside, but they have a mouthful of hooks that allow them to DIG IN to your flesh, and borrow!

Your sacrifice is required for their reproduction, just like the Night King built his army of Wights!

Female ticks take a few blood meals during their life cycle. They require their last blood meal in order to reproduce, and create more blood-sucking, disease spreading ticks! In search of their blood meal, they will latch on to your flesh, sink their hooks in you, and can transfer very harmful diseases, like Lyme disease.

Tick bites are your blood sacrifice!
Your sacrifice could be Lyme disease!

Central Mass ticks can survive the winter, just like the Night King!

Contrary to popular belief, ticks do not die in winter. Reputable Central Massachusetts tick prevention professionals have solutions, such as tick tubes, which will continue to eliminate ticks “out of season” and control the tick population in your yard during the next spring and summer!

Do ticks survive winter? — Like the Night King, Central Mass ticks easily survive winter!

Don’t say, “Dracarys!” Fire will not help you remove a tick – just like dragonfire won’t kill the Night King!

You do NOT want to burn ticks to get them out of your skin. Never put yourself, your loved one, or your pet in harm’s way by trying to burn a tick to remove it. This cannot end well! How should your remove a tick?

Steel vanquished the Night King, and will help you vanquish your tick!

Tweezer tick removal — Proper tick removal requires tweezers.

Valyrian steel not required! For that matter, please not your most effective weapon will not be a dagger. All you need is a nice pair of tweezers to remove and dispose of your tick.

My goal is always to inform you about the dangers of ticks in Central Mass. The best way to control them, and to keep your family safe, is to prevent them in the first place. As they say, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

How to Remove and Dispose of a Tick

How do you properly remove a tick? Once removed, how do you dispose of a tick? There are a lot of theories floating on the Internet.

Listening to people discuss their methods of disposing removed ticks can range from hilarious to frightening. If you’ve heard these discussions, you may begin to ask yourself if others feel about ticks the same way they feel about werewolves or other monsters. Many ideas for disposing of a tick seem both inhuman and punitive to the tick. That’s probably why we never see protestors demanding an end to cruel and unusual punishment against ticks.

Ticks don’t need to be feared. Yes, they will suck your blood. Yes, they can give you a disease, actually several very nasty ones. Scientists believe though that they need to be on your skin drinking your blood between 24-48 hours before your risk of infection becomes significant.

So before you get your flame thrower out or fire up the grill to make a funeral pyre for a tick you find this summer, let’s look at some creative methods of eliminating ticks others have used. On wikiHow.com, there are five methods listed. Readers have added even more. Some of these are comical. You’ll see our recommendation down below but this list was so interesting, we had to share.

Do not remove or dispose of a tick any of these ways!

First, there is fire. You may have heard of using fire to burn a tick on your skin in order to make it release its grip. That’s a bad practice for several reasons, including risk of burning yourself. It’s also a perfect way for the tick to dump its infectious bacteria quickly into your blood before it releases or dies. So, remove first and dispose of second.

Next, there is the flush. Once the tick is removed, the suggestion is to wrap it in toilet paper and flush it down the toilet. You may fear the tick won’t go all the way down or that it will crawl back up if it has only been partially flushed down the drain. Although no cases have been reported, you imagine “Tick Terminator” coming back for revenge. This is another not so good idea. It’s not likely your tick will return but you may need the tick for reasons we will explain later.

Third is the microwave. I don’t know about you but the idea of using something I warm my food in as an insect crematorium makes me want to eat cold food all summer long. The website points out there may be issues with putting the tick in a plastic bag and then placing it in a microwave. It mentions tick blood and juices inside the bag may get inside the microwave, if the bag explodes. YUCK!”

The first defense in tick protection is total tick control – call on a Central Mass tick spray professional!

Fourth is alcohol. This may well work but may also will take some time. Ticks can hold their breath a long time so you may want to get a cold drink and rent a movie if this is your method of tick termination. But again, remove the tick first and dispose of second.

Fifth is my favorite. It involves releasing the tick harmlessly. I knew my fellow animal lovers wouldn’t fail me. This is the catch-and-release version of insect control. The recommendation is to release the tick “a long way from your house”. Releasing the tick into say, your neighbor’s yard, will likely mean you won’t see that tick again. Ticks don’t crawl very far and have a limited home territory so you’re probably safe from that one. Unfortunately, the newborn ticks that the released tick makes will probably find their way on your property within a year. By then your neighbor may not be speaking to you and you’ll need to find another drop-off point to practice catch-and-release.

How to remove and dispose of a tick.

So what’s the actual best way to dispose of a tick? First, before terminating it, you need to remove it from the skin properly. Removing it properly will reduce your risk of infection and remove all the infected tick parts. Follow these tick removal instructions!

Once removed, the next step is to seal the tick tightly in a clear plastic bag or an old prescription bottle. Skip the microwave part. Observe yourself for symptoms for at least the next 30 days. It can take many tick disease symptoms, including Lyme Disease, that many days to appear. Keeping any tick you remove from your skin in a sealed plastic bag will allow it to be tested. Testing the tick, is the best way for your doctor to know what tick disease you may have. Even partial ticks missing their head, legs, etc. can be tested for diseases.

Save your matches, microwave and grill for lighting fires and cooking this summer. Ticks don’t need to be tortured for being ticks. More importantly, removing and preserving your tick properly can go a long way to you receiving a correct diagnosis and being treated quickly.

Also read: Do not remove a tick with peppermint oil!

Dave Macchia Mosquito Squad square 2 — Dave Macchia, Tick Control Enthusiast

Is Your Tick Bite Infected? If You’re Concerned about Lyme Disease in Central Mass, Read More.

Not all ticks carry infections. Many areas of the US don’t have a serious tick problem. Unfortunately, Central MA is not one of them.

Ticks can carry more than one infection, which are often associated with the tick species. Our most common tick in Massachusetts is the Deer tick, a carrier of Lyme Disease.

When bitten by a Deer tick, it can take 3-30 days before any sign of a Lyme infection has occurred. It is important to write down on a calendar when you were bitten. Any sign or symptoms occurring within 30 days should be reported to your physician. He or she will need to know when you were bitten and when you noticed the first symptoms. Ticks use an anesthetic when they bite, so they often go unnoticed. If a tick is removed within 48 hours of first biting, the risk of them transmitting Lyme Disease is believed to be low.

Lyme disease prevention begins with trusted Central Mass tick control.

If you do find a tick attached to your skin, there are certain things you need to know. Along with fatigue, chills, fever, headache, muscle and joint pain and swollen lymph nodes you should look for physical signs of an infection as well. In the case of Lyme Disease, the infection will often show as a bulls-eye rash on your skin. It can appear around the bite or anywhere on the skin. The rash will often gradually expand further out from the area first discovered. Some patients will simply notice a red blotch with no bulls-eye. The rash is usually not itchy or painful. Thirty percent of infected patients will not see a rash at all, so noting the other symptoms you are experiencing is important in your diagnosis.

Also read: Should I put anything on a tick bite?

The bulls-eye rash can have other variations. Immune response, skin pigmentation and the location of the bite can affect how the rash develops. In the photo on the right, only a small, inflamed area appears around the bite. This inflammation is a first sign of a possible infection but not conclusive. Inflammation is a naturally occurring healing process our body uses to repair damaged cells. Consider any inflammation an indication you need to observe if you have any other symptoms and if a rash around the bite area.

This photo is the classic bulls-eye rash with which we are most familiar. It clearly looks like a bulls-eye and is indicative of a Lyme infection.

Lyme rash — courtesy of dunehypnotherapy.co.uk.com

This photo shows a less defined bulls-eye. It does have a reddish or brown center area with a lighter brown area around it. This patient had a Lyme infection.

lyme disease infection — courtesy of helio.com

On tanned skin, the bulls-eye rash can be even more difficult to distinguish. The darker pigmentation of the skin makes the rash more subdued and difficult to distinguish. This photo is from a pediatric patient with a Lyme infection.

The most important thing to remember when bitten by a tick is to track your symptoms. In many cases, no rash may appear. Each patient’s immune system will respond differently to an infection but a rash is one more clue that a Lyme infection has occurred.

Remember, if you are in good health and Lyme Disease is diagnosed early you have an excellent prognosis of overcoming the disease after a few weeks of antibiotics. Contacting your doctor as soon as any symptoms appear is your best course of action in overcoming any worry and getting rid of the disease.

Also read: Is Chronic Lyme disease real?

Fall Is The Best Time To Eliminate Ticks And Mosquitoes in MA

Summer is officially over, kids are back in school, winter is coming, so it’s time to think about Thanksgiving and forget about ticks and mosquitoes, right? Not exactly. Mosquito and tick protection is a year-round concern!

Ticks and mosquitoes are doing their own planning. In short, they’re planning to be in your yard next spring in even larger numbers. Now is the best time to eliminate ticks and mosquitoes. Here’s why.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know by now that October and November are breeding season for ticks. Mosquitoes breed on average every 4 weeks during their 2-3 month life cycle. Cold weather will kill off a few species but most mosquitoes will simply go dormant in cold weather. Eggs laid this fall won’t hatch until next spring when the weather warms.

Blacklegged ticks are most responsible for Lyme Disease and are commonly called Deer Ticks for a reason. Now is the time of year female ticks hitch a ride and drink a blood meal necessary to make eggs. The white-tailed deer is the best resource to provide that last blood meal. They are large enough to supply fully-grown ticks with the necessary blood meal they need to lay eggs. The eggs laid this fall will hatch next spring into larvae. The male ticks don’t need a blood meal since their life is over as adults but they hitch a ride on the deer to simply mate with the females. One deer can nourish thousands of female ticks with their last blood meal before they lay their eggs.

The females will leave most of these tick eggs in the nests of white – footed mice. These mice are prevalent around Central Mass homes and in every state where Lyme Disease is endemic. The newly hatched eggs will become larvae in the spring. The larvae ticks will need a blood meal to move onto the nymph stage later in the spring. Their first blood meal is often taken from the mouse that provided them a home during the winter.

As for female mosquitoes, they will deposit their eggs in damp soil, tree knotholes and anywhere that spring rains will allow the eggs to hatch when the weather turns warm. Like ticks, cold will not kill mosquito eggs. Predation is their main enemy but there are few bugs or other insects out during the winter, so few eggs will be eliminated.

By eliminating adult ticks and mosquitoes in the fall, you can reduce their numbers in your yard next spring and summer. October and November are the peak months for female ticks to get their last blood meal and lay their eggs. You can learn more about the tick life cycle at the American Lyme Disease Foundation website discussing Deer Tick Ecology.

Even if you’re not currently using a tick and mosquito perimeter spray, you can still reduce ticks in your yard next spring. A tick tube program is a highly effective method for eliminating the tick population in your yard before spring. It is specifically designed to eliminate nymph ticks now that will be adults late next summer. A one-time application a barrier spray now will reduce the adult population of both insects, thereby reducing the number of eggs they can lay in or near your yard. Now is the best time to begin protecting your family and pets from infectious bites next spring.

Westminster Tick Control – Break the 2-Year Life Cycle of Ticks

You might think the fall is the end of tick season and that you will soon be protected from tick bites with the approaching colder weather. If so, you are partially correct.

Ticks in Central Mass will begin to go dormant in weather below 45 degrees F. by hiding in the nests of white-footed mice. No amount of cold will eliminate ticks and there’s one other fact you need to know about the fall and ticks.

A tick’s life cycle is usually 2-years long. Ticks that were eggs last fall are now nymphs. They have taken two blood meals to reach this stage in their life cycle. Because of these two blood meals, often taken from several small animals or birds infected with Lyme Disease, they are now the most infectious to humans. Next spring these nymphs will leave the mouse’s nest. They will be the size of a poppy seed, making them difficult to see on our clothes and skin. After their third blood meal next spring, they will become larger during mid-summer and be adults in the fall of next year. At this last stage of their life cycle, the males will fertilize the females and the females will produce a new generation of ticks in your yard.

Westminster tick control is available now, to protect you next year.

Now is the time of year to interrupt the tick’s life cycle in your yard and reduce your exposure to nymph ticks next spring. By using a tick tube program, you can eliminate ticks around your home even before next spring. The tick tubes are placed out now will provide nesting material, treated with tick insecticide, the white-footed mouse will use to build its nest this winter. This nesting material will eliminate ticks in the nest without harming the mice. The net result is fewer ticks in your yard next spring and a head start at eliminating your family’s exposure to ticks all summer long.

When you sign up for Westminster tick control spray treatments next summer, it will eliminate 85-90% of the ticks in your yard all summer long. Treatments are scheduled at your convenience every 21 days. The spray will eliminate newly hatched ticks, nymph ticks and adult ticks in your yard. Ticks brought into your yard by any animals such as squirrels, raccoons, fox and deer will be eliminated by the spray. Using the tick tube program now and the barrier spray next spring through next fall will reduce your exposure to tick-borne infections.

The town of Westminster has posted an online document explaining the Steps You Can Take in preventing ticks in your yard. The document highlights the importance of using a licensed applicator in treating your yard to prevent ticks. A link to a Tick Management Handbook published by the Centers for Disease Control and prevention is also in this informative document.

A licensed Westminster tick control spray applicator will be fully trained and qualified in providing the tick tube and barrier spray services you need to protect you, your family and pets.