Dr. Stafford Tick Management Handbook - Newtown, CT
Dr. Stafford Tick Management Handbook - Newtown, CT
Dr. Stafford Tick Management Handbook - Newtown, CT
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
<strong>Stafford</strong>The Connecticut Agricultural Experimentation Station• Pathogen: the microorganism (i.e., virus, bacteria, rickettsia, protozoa, fungus) that maycause disease.• Parasite: An animal that lives in or on a host for at least part of their life and bene. tsfrom the association at the expense of the host (from the Greek, literally para - besideand sitos - food).• Vector: An insect or other arthropod, like a tick, that carries and transmits a diseasepathogen. Diseases associated with pathogens transmitted by a vector are called vectorbornediseases.• Host: An animal infected by a pathogen or infested with a parasite.• Reservoir: An animal host that is capable of maintaining a pathogen and serving as asource of infection.• Zoonoses: A disease caused by a pathogen that is maintained in vertebrate animals thatcan be transmitted naturally to humans or domestic animals by a vector or through othermeans (e.g. saliva, feces).• Endemic disease: A disease that is established and present more or less continuously in acommunity.<strong>Tick</strong> Biology and Behavior<strong>Tick</strong>s, like many mite species, are obligate blood-feeders, requiring a host animal for foodand development. <strong>Tick</strong>s have four stages in their life cycle: egg, the 6-legged larva (seed ticks),and 8-legged nymph and adult (male or female). Larvae and nymphs change to the next stageafter digesting a blood meal by molting or shedding the cuticle. Most of the ticks mentioned inthis handbook have a 3-host life cycle, whereas each of the three active stages feed on a differentindividual host animal, taking a single blood meal. Larvae feed to repletion on one animal, dropto the ground and molt to a nymph. The nymphs must . nd and attach to another animal, engorge,drop to ground and molt to an adult. The adult tick feeds on a third animal. A replete or engorged(blood . lled) female tick will produce a single large batch of eggs and then die. Depending upon thespecies of tick, egg mass deposited can range roughly from 1,000 to 18,000 eggs.3-host tick life cycle84Bulletin No. 1010