The most common reason is the availability of the animals they like to parasitize. Ticks are arthropods that eat blood they suck out of their hosts. Because they eat blood, as they change hosts, they can and will expose animals and humans to an assortment of blood-borne diseases. What ticks will you see in Alabama? We’re going to examine 9 ticks now.
9 Types of Ticks Found in Alabama
Here are 9 of the ticks in Alabama: What do these ticks look like and are they dangerous? We’ll dive in below!
1. The Lone Star Tick
Lone star ticks are also known as water ticks and are the most common ticks encountered in the state. They seek pets, deer, mice, rats, raccoons, turkeys, and humans. They are known to carry diseases. There’s one white dot on a female’s brown body, which makes them easy to identify. They’re hard to detect with the naked eye because they’re the size of a poppyseed, which is small for a tick. These ticks love meadows or tall grasses, so they can sit on the ends of the grass and wait for their next meal to come by.
2. The American Dog Tick
As the name implies, this tick readily goes after pets. They’ll also use people as hosts as well. They’re a common species throughout Alabama, and they’re also called the wood tick. While these ticks don’t feed on dogs exclusively, they’re so common with pets that they earned the word “dog” in their name. When checking your dog for these ticks, look closely in their armpits, in their ears, and between their toes. Then glance over their entire body to make sure there isn’t an errant tick in an unusual spot. They prefer grass, low-lying vegetation, and wooded areas. They steer away from established forests. Urban areas are easy homes for them due to the dog and human populations. They can live up to 2 years without feeding. Rocky Mountain spotted fever is spread by this tick more than any other insect. These ticks take three hosts in their lifetime, depending on their stage of development.
3. The Gopher Tortoise Tick
The southeastern United States harbors this tick, including southern Alabama, where the soil is sandy and deep. Its host is the gopher tortoise, and as many as 19 ticks have been seen on these tortoises. It can survive temperatures below 30 degrees, but it most common in spring.
4. The Winter Tick
Also known as the moose tick, the adults are brownish with cream-colored patterns on their backs. It prefers large animals with hooves and inhabits areas where these kinds of animals reside. While diseases haven’t been detected in these ticks, they can infest a host in the wild to the point that they succumb to the infestation. This tick got its name because it’s mostly found in winter and fall. It takes only one host its entire life, and it’ll go after coyotes, dogs, beavers, and bears if the opportunity is right. It rarely bites humans.
5. The Gulf Coast Tick
The Gulf Coast tick looks a lot like the American dog tick. This tick munches on the blood of animals all over the state. Coyotes, deer, and livestock are preferred hosts; however, they will feed on humans and their pets if the opportunity arises. It was previously believed that this tick didn’t transmit diseases to humans, but that was proven wrong. This tick is also the source of screwworm infections in cattle. This isn’t a direct process; the ticks create small wounds on a cattle’s ears which screwworm flies use to lay their eggs.
6. The Deer Tick
Also known as the black-legged tick, these ticks are reddish-brown to black with a lighter abdomen. They like shrubby areas with low-lying vegetation. They do not exclusively feed on deer. Deer ticks also go after humans, bears, mice, and pets. They hang on for 3-5 days to get their full meal. They are the main vector of Lyme disease. They’re most active in the fall and spend their winters dormant in leaf litter and ground debris. Their habitat is underbrush and thick grass.
7. The Brown Dog Tick
This tick is found all over Alabama and is reddish-brown. It will infest dog kennels, animal pens, and human houses. This tick prefers dogs, although it will go after almost any mammal. It’s not surprising that this tick is also known as the kennel tick. Their infestations are so common that they’re considered one of the top 10 most common household pests in the USA. Young adult ticks look much different than old adult ticks. Ticks that are young are pale brown, whereas adults are a red-brown color. Adults will have beige abdomens if they’re full of blood. They’re found all year in Alabama, though they’re most prevalent in the spring and summer.
8. The Rabbit Tick
This tick is also called the grouse tick. Females are a little darker than the males, but they’re both a reddish-tan color. It prefers forests, and their numbers are greatest in the summer. Once fall hits, their numbers drastically decline. As their name suggests, these ticks prefer to dine on the blood of rabbits. You’ll find them on their necks and between their ears. They rarely feed on humans, but they will in rare circumstances.
9. The Groundhog Tick
Like most of the ticks on this list, these ticks are also reddish-brown though females are tanner. They’re also called the woodchuck tick. Dogs, cats, porcupines, raccoons, foxes, and groundhogs are its favored hosts. It’s not common for them to feed on humans. They can survive over a year without a real meal.
