Peek-a-boo!
It’s me, Tattle, and I’m about to share a huge secret to my blog followers and answer one of the most commonly asked questions: where do ticks hide? In short, ticks like to hide in warm, moist areas of the body. However, I like to go into more detail so that my fellow followers can know specifically where to look if they happen to be outside where ticks might be.
An illustration provided by the CDC showing the most common areas a tick will attach to the human body.
Let’s begin where you are likely to find ticks. Hard ticks are often found in open areas such as grasslands, meadows or forests. Ticks have two different strategies on how they find their hosts: ambush and hunter strategy (Parola and Raoult, 2001). These tick strategies are exactly as they sound. In the ambush strategy, ticks climb to the highest point of vegetation that they can reach and wait until a possible host brushes by. This behavior is known as “questing” (Tick Feeding). Once a host does come by, they attach themselves with their two front legs and begin to search for a good place to attach. The hunter strategy is where the ticks scurry towards an animal and actively search for their next meal (Milius, 2017). I know, terrifying.
Now, once a tick has found itself onto its host, the place where it attaches can vary. A tick can attach itself anywhere but it prefers hard-to-see areas that are moist and warm (Transmission). The Centers for Disease Control has provided an illustration of the most common areas ticks attach to the human body you can see here or on our News tab located under “I-TICK Newsletter.” The most common areas ticks are found are as follows:
- In and around the hair
- In and around the ears
- Under the arms
- Inside the belly-button
- Around the waist
- Between the legs
- Back of the knees
It is important that you check not only these common areas where ticks are find but everywhere after being out in nature. While ticks do prefer certain areas of the body, they can also attach themselves anywhere they please. If you do happen to find a tick on yourself, attached or unattached, remove it as safely and quickly as possible. The I-TICK team recommends you check out one of our previous blogs, How to removed an attached tick – Tattle the Tick blog, to learn more about the correct way to remove a tick as well as checking out our instructional on how to remove ticks that you can visit here.
See you guys next Friday!
-Tattle
