Greyish Beetle?
Location: Calgary AB Canada
December 13, 2011 11:48 pm
Hi There
I’ve seen this bug all over the house and am wondering if you can identify it. Thanks!
Signature: Chelsey

Tick

Tick

Thank you for your speedy reply. We believe (and hope) they are coming off our dog. Most of them have been spotted in his favourite areas (dog bed, our bed, couch). Thinking back now I have also seen the smaller, baby-type ones. I thought it was just a small spider hiding in the trim/moulding around the doors. Thanks again for identifying it.
-Chelsey

Hi again Chelsey,
Sometimes in an attempt to provide as many responses as possible, we just provide a name to a request that we do not post.  We had a few spare minutes this morning so we are posting your letter and photo in the belief it may help other visitors to our site identify Ticks which are often found in homes at the onset of colder weather.  They most likely did come indoors by hitching on your dog.

Thanks Daniel. We took our dog to the vet and the vet spent 2 hours taking 25 ticks off him. Since then we have found about an additional 10 on him. We’ve scrubbed our house, finding probably 50 ticks (all sizes and shapes but mostly small/baby ones) and finding eggs as well..we’re hoping the cleaning will help prevent them from coming back.
Fortunately neither myself or my husband have been bit, just my dog. We did find one attempting to bite my rabbit as well but he couldn’t burrow far enough to reach the skin past the thick fur.
Do you know what their resistance to cold weather is? It’s floating around -5 degrees Celsius right now (at night going to about -10) and we bagged all of our clothes and put them on our porch, until we are able to wash them, in an effort to try and kill any hiding in our clothing.
We were shocked to hear our local exterminators had no tips on trying to get them out of the house. It’s unheard-of to have a tick infestation here. haha what luck I guess?
Thanks again
-Chelsey

Hi Chelsey,
Alas, we don’t know what the Ticks tolerance to low temperatures is.  Many insects and arthropods can withstand low temperatures for short periods of time.

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Seed Tick Aftermath
Location: Kirksville, MO
August 21, 2011 10:46 am
Hi again, Daniel.
I have no problem at all with images being cropped/rotated to fit the site, and thank you for the compliments. I discovered, however, that there was a great deal more on the trail than the cannibal flies. On my drive home from the trail, my ankles started itching terribly. Once I was out of the car, I rolled my socks down to discover that my ankles were crawling with seed ticks! Needless to say, all of my clothes wound up in the laundry post haste, and my shoes were promptly treated with some permethrin based spray (which I admittedly should have done -before- the hike!). I discovered that a safety razor works really well in removing the pinhead-sized pests, but I wasn’t able to get them off quickly enough to save my ankles – my left one caught the worst of it!
A note to any hikers with ticks in the area, make sure you treat your clothing before going out, because a tick doesn’t have to transmit a pathogen to leave an unwanted ’gift’ behind!
Signature: EB

Tick Bites

Dear EB,
We were not aware of the term Seed Ticks to describe larval Ticks, though that seems a perfect name.  We researched the name and found a very descriptive blog posting on Mayaland as well as this informative page on the Flea and Tick Control website.  Thanks so much for your warning to our readership as well as your personal tips.

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What is this bug?
Location: milwaukee, wi usa
June 15, 2011 11:00 pm
Hello, we are freaked out. This was on my daughter’s head. It was not burrowing in, but on the service, we pried it off easily but there was some blood on her scalp. Is it a tick, bedbug, lice? Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Signature: craig

Tick

Hi Craig,
This is a Tick.  Human are not the primary host for Ticks, but in the absence of a cat, dog or deer, these opportunistic feeders may feed off of the blood of a human host.

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Is this a carios kelleyi? (Bat tick?)
Location: Central Wisconsin
April 2, 2011 10:45 am
I did some research online with these photos I took of this bug in our closet. I’v never seen anything like it! We live in Wisconsin, and I don’t know if this bug is native to here, or where it came from? I took some shots at different angles. It wasn’t moving very fast, so it was easy to do. Please let me know what this crab/tick-like bug is, so that I can finally sleep at night! Thank you!
Signature: The Beckers

Tick

Dear Beckers,
We agree that this is a Tick, but we are not confident trying to identify the species.  While we acknowledge that it does resemble the Bat Tick images posted on BugGuide, we believe it looks even more like this unidentified Tick posted to BugGuide, interestingly also from Wisconsin.  Perhaps one of our readers will be able to provide additional information.

Tick

Thanks for the response. I agree it looks like the unidentified bug from wisconsin. I know for a fact that we have bats in our attic, near to where I found this bug, so thats why I assumed it was a bat tick. And maybe it’s a species of bat tick. Are bat ticks harmful to humans, do you know?
Thanks for the help!

Thanks for writing back.  Harmful is relative.  We believe that most Ticks, which feed on the blood of a relatively specific host, will bite and feed off of the blood of an alternate food source if the primary food is unavailable.  Since you have bats, it now seems that a Bat Tick is a likely contender.  We suspect that a hungry Bat Tick might bite a human if no bats can be found.  We believe that most people would consider that to be harmful.  We do not know if Bat Ticks carry any secondary pathogens like Lyme Disease which is carried by the Deer Tick.  We believe that all people would consider that to be harmful.  Perhaps a true expert, or an amateur who can point us to any respectable links online, will write in with any additional information.
P.S.  We decided to feature your posting.

That’s great that you decided to feature my posting! Hopefully we’ll get some answers from others who have hopefully seen this tick as well.
Thanks for the information- hopefully it was an isolated tick, and the others are hanging out on the bats in our attic….bats that are unreachable since it’s about 1-2 feet of attic space…don’t really know how we are going to get rid of those!
Thanks again

Update on Bats in the Attic
April 5, 2011
Hi Daniel,
I am wondering about the bat tick, and the bats in the attic.  Bats in colder climates usually only inhabit attics during the summer, and go to caves, mines, etc. for the winter to hibernate.  Are the bats in the attic right now?  If not, now is the perfect time for the Becker’s to exclude the bats.  They can put a bat house up near when the bats come and go from in the summer time, then close up the hole/area in the attic where they are getting in (as long as they are sure there are no bats in the attic).  More information on bat houses, bats, and exclusions can be found at www.batcon.org (Bat Conservation International). …
Thanks, Liz

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