I HATE ticks!!

[mjs1973]

This year has been terrible for wood ticks. The wife and I have found a couple dozen on the dogs, and on me in the last 2 weeks. I found another one on one of our dogs this afternoon, after our walk. I decided to try to take some macro shots of the little blood sucker. I used the 100mm f/2.8 macro along with all three tubes. The white background is from the lid of a jelly jar that I had put the tick in while I got out my camera. The first two images are crops, the image with the dime if full frame.

[paulnj]

cool images! Try permanone(sp?) for ticks, it's by far the best tick repellant out there.

[mjs1973]

cool images! Try permanone(sp?) for ticks, it's by far the best tick repellant out there.

Thanks for the tip Paul!

[paulnj]

This is the brand I use. It isn't fool proof, but works pretty well!

http://www.greatoutdoorsdepot.com/re...repellant.html

[Loupey]

Me no like! When I shot the macro of the ant climbing on little flower a few days ago, I had to lay completely flat in a field of grass/weeds at a park. When I got up, I had one trying to climb up my shorts.

[Bevb]

Horrid little things, we have trouble with ticks here in summer months, all my dogs have to be treated especially before we go on our camping holidays, but fortunately not had any on us (i dont think anyway) but they can cause humans harm if bitten cant they? cant exactly remember the name of the decease but a pheasant shooter over here lost his life not long back through tick bites.

Great images by the way really shows these little horrors body details and im definately going to check this 100mm macro lense out.

[mjs1973]

Horrid little things, we have trouble with ticks here in summer months, all my dogs have to be treated especially before we go on our camping holidays, but fortunately not had any on us (i dont think anyway) but they can cause humans harm if bitten cant they? cant exactly remember the name of the decease but a pheasant shooter over here lost his life not long back through tick bites.

Great images by the way really shows these little horrors body details and im definately going to check this 100mm macro lense out.

Lyme disease is what you're talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_Disease

[Copy_Kot]

Cool shot's and a good reminder to check for them.

I've read that some people wear flea and tick collars around their ankles when walking through the woods. It seems like a good idea, but I don't know if I would go that far :lol:

[SmartWombat]

Xlea/tixk collar on your sock has got to be better than Lyme disease.

[Yarrow]

Creepy looking little buggers... Great shots

[mjs1973]

Thanks everyone. I pulled another one of these little blood suckers off of my leg last night, after walking the dogs. I haven't checked the dogs yet, I'm sure they will have a few more too.

[Sushigaijin]

heh.

come snake hunting with me, I'll show you ALL the best places to find ticks. Among the three of us who went in april, we pulled well over a hundred ticks on the crawl and each of us had at least two or three embedded. I even transmitted one to my wife who found it embedded three days after I got home

I wouldn't mind them if they didn't carry lyme's disease, they really are a lot better than flies or wasps or mosquitoes buzzing around.

[PMW518]

Its not the wood ticks that carry the lyme's disease, its the deer ticks. The deer ticks are smaller than the wood ticks that mjs1973 has the posted pictures of, they are close to the size or the lead on the tip of a pencil sometimes a little smaller too.

Since they are so small its sometimes hard to see them so its a good idea to check your self over after being out in a woods/fields or yard depending on where you live. Its easy to check when you shower since you can feel them as a small bump on you when you run your hand along your skin and they can't hide under clothing (unless for some reason you shower clothed). They like hair lines or other semi hidden areas (arm/elbow/knee pits).

If you find one its easy to pull it off if its not already burrowed under your skin, if it has burrowed it head under pull it off with a tweezers by the head not the body so that the body doesn't rip off leaving the head in your skin. Also try not to squeeze the body as that can cause them to discharge fluids into you. When pulling use a small counter clockwise twist motion, as twist clockwise slightly when they go in.

If they don't want to come out too easily, or to make it easier, try putting a blob of vasaline over their head, this suffocates them and after a little while they will back out of you and you can pull them off easier.

After you get the tick off of you if its a wood tick, go ahead and kill/dispose of it how ever you feel led, they are pretty tough and just trying to squish them with you fingers won't work. Between two rocks, knife, or down the drain all work well. If it was a deer tick you may want to save it in a sealed plastic bag and bring it into your family doctor for testing of lymes disease, so that you can be treated if need be.

If you are bitten by a deer tick that is a carrier of lymes disease and you don't notice it before it fills with blood and drops off, and you contracted the disease from it, you may notice a small target looking mark on you at the location of the bite. Its a white circle with a red ring around it, a little larger than the size of a quarter. Along with this you may or may not experience some of the other symptoms, some similar to arthritis, aching in joints stiffness, fever/sickness, headache. If you have any of these go into your doc, he can test you and give you some nice drugs to take everyday for a month or two, and they you won't die, or end up having to live with aches and pains for the rest of your life.

Hopefully my ramblings make a little bit of sense to someone, there really isn't much to be worried about with wood ticks, its the smaller hard to find deer ticks that can give you lymes disease which when treated isn't that big of a deal, I and several other people I know have lived through it. If you have any of the symptoms or the "target" marking go in and get checked, its better to stop in for a quick check then end up living with chronic aches and pains, or end up not living any more.