Topic: Clone Tick (aka 'Asian Longhorned Tick') "swarms"

[Libertas]

Asian longhorned ticks, also sometimes called “clone ticks” because they can reproduce without mating, have killed five cows in the Tar Heel State this year -- by draining them of blood. Each cow was infested by hundreds of ticks.

“The official cause of death,” writes technology news site Ars Technica, “was acute anemia, which is typically associated with severe hemorrhaging.”
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“The first case identified in the U.S. was in West Virginia from a tick taken from a white-tail deer in August 2010,” the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services wrote in a July 8 warning to livestock owners. “Since then, 67 counties in the United States have confirmed local Asian longhorned tick populations. Virginia has the most counties with 24 confirmed.”

The state agency added: “The tick can reproduce parthenogenetically (without a male) and a single fed female tick can create a localized population.”
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In the U.S., Asian longhorned ticks have been found in Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee and West Virginia.

https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2019/07/clone-tick-swarms-new-to-us-are-killing-cattle-by-draining-their-blood-chasing-after-humans.html

Nasty!  Target for extermination!

[Pandora]

Indeed.  I hatez 'em.

Those stricken with longterm Lyme Disease find they become allergic to red meat as a result.  Seriously.

[Syzygy]

Lyme disease is from the deer tick,  primarily.  The meat allergy comes from the lone star tick,  so called because of the one white dot on the female's back:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblyomma_americanum

I've read that the allergy to red meat doesn't come from the infectious bite but rather from the antibodies our bodies produce to fight the invading pathogen.  Not sure I fully understand all that.

I've gotten one off me a couple years ago,  before it bit,  easily identified by the spot,  and those suckers (intended pun) can really move,  fast as a some spiders  (wonder if that's what that "ambly..." in their scientific name is all about).  Much faster than the common brown tick we have been plagued with for years,  and which became carriers of Rocky Mountain spotted tick fever many years ago. 

Never heard of these Asian longhorns before.  Seems like a new one scarier than the last comes along every few years or so,  now. 

It's like the ten plagues of Egypt only all the plagues are ticks,  each one a little more deadly than the last.   I've been pretty well "ticked off" all summer and hope to stay that way till "passover"  (cold weather). 

[Libertas]

Most cases of Lyme Disease are via Deer Tick...can also get it via Castor Bean Tick (Europe...who is to say they cannot make it here one day or perhaps are and nobody knows yet) and critters get it form bacteria...bacteria gets in ticks...ticks give to humans.  There is a couple other nasty conditions ticks pass along too other than Lyme...

My policy is simple: bloodsuckers die!