It was huge, about the size of an M & M peanut, and blue, actually a bluish gray like designer’s call Federal Blue, and had tiny legs, six of them so it had to be an insect, not an arachnid. It lay there on it’s back unable to upright itself no matter how fast those teeny dirty yellow legs churned. It did get the rear up, still not enough hydraulics.
My brother had spilled it out of an old prescription bottle onto a bench. He asked, “Now what kind of bug is that that it can’t even upright itself? Why would God create such a thing? How could the species survive?, he paused, Do you know what it is?”
It looked impossible, but there are many impossible-looking animals like dashhounds that often get broken backs from the too long body on little stumpy legs, a daddy longlegs walking on stilts, and how does a walrus eat with those tusks?
I have read Darwin’s book on plants and have first-hand experience with the magic of hydraulics.
I didn’t have a clue.
It’s a tick, an engorged tick.
Oh god, my stomach flip-flopped.
So that is what started my investigation into tickworld.
Ticks do not, as commonly believed, live in trees. They are only on the ground, hanging out in leaves. They can’t fly either. They do walk a lot though, so you can find three of them wandering around on the screen door as I did out at the Mississippi bluff house.
Watch out here he comes>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
First the tick emits a cement so she will stay attached, then she adds an anticoagulant so the blood flows freely, and a spritz of antihistimine so it doesn’t itch or you would know she is there and scratch her off. There was one other ingredient but it slipped my mind.
Now she sits there attached to you, a parasite. She’s just hanging out.
Two days later comes the BIG SIP.
Now the tick is fully engorged. Realize the original tick could be no bigger than a pinpoint and now it’s HUGE. Then it falls off.
Now it prepares to produce LOTS of baby ticks waiting for your next walk in the woods.
So basically my brother wore that ugly tick for 2 days! EEK! It fell off on the carpet in the bedroom. Ticks are not only grimy little parasites, they are dangerous. They carry disease. Wood ticks aren’t too bad (those are the large brown ones.) But deer ticks (the pinpoints) carry Lyme disease. I think they were first discovered in Lyme, Connecticut hence the name. Basically they can kill you. You can have the disease for a long time before you know it. Look for a red circle, that’s a clue. But there may be no clues beyond muscle ache and then one day you can walk. If you find a tick attached to your flesh, take a fine tweezers, grab the head and pull out slowly and precisely.
If you have a deer tick engorged and laying on your bedroom carpet, get antibiotics.
If you are a morel hunter like me, you need to take precautions. Wear camo clothes, they are thick, and pull your socks up over the pant bottoms. Spray with tick spray.
Happy hunting!
Update: I was chatting with a man that just went through survival training and he said to get a tick to release just smother it with vaseline. I bought a big jar and it's already packed in my travel bag.
