2 Photos
The East Hampton Gardens outdoor patio.
2006 Dr. Amanda Loftis, Dr. William Nicholson, Dr. Will Reeves This photograph depicts a female lone star tick Amblyomma americanum. An Ixodes or hard tick, A. americanum is found through the southeast and south-central states, and has been shown to transmit the spirochete, Borrelia lonestari, the pathogen responsible for causing a Lyme disease-like rash known as Southern tick-associated associated rash illness (STARI). Representatives from all three of its life stages aggressively bite people in the southern U.S. Research indicates that live spirochetes are observed in only 1-3% of specimens. The small chitinous scutum on the ticks dorsal abdomen identified this as a female of the species. The reduced scutal size enables the abdomen to expand to enormous proportions when ingesting a blood meal the tick extracts from its host food source, as seen in PHIL# 8677. In the male, the scutum covers almost the entire dorsal abdomen. Also, note the four pairs of jointed legs, placing ticks in the Phylum Arthropoda, and the Class Arachnida.
Colleen Reynolds on Jan 3, 2012