The last AEDC tick-drag ...

Hunting for the wily Xmas tick  ... our 36th and final tick drag at Arnold Airforce Base, where we began sampling in April 2010.

Mug-shots of Southern Ixodes ticks

Adult female Ixodes spp. ticks, dorsal and ventral, from five southern states -- all collected during November 2012.

Blaze orange

Important items purchased for this weekend's fieldwork at AEDC and OTNF (= trying not to get shot while flagging for ticks).

Oak Ridge deer check, Tennessee

Hunting for blacklegged ticks and Borrelia in east Texas, with the Hamer lab at TAMU

 

MNWR in October: wet even before Hurricane Sandy came by!

Beginning of the end ... uninstalling our sampling arrays at AEDC, Tennessee.

And of course it rained ...

 

Ellen Stromdahl and the "Beyond Lyme" review article

The journal Zoonoses and Public Health today published a review paper by Ellen Stromdahl and Graham Hickling entitled "BEYOND LYME: ETIOLOGY OF TICK-BORNE HUMAN DISEASES WITH EMPHASIS ON THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES"

You can see an NSF media release about the review here: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=124286&org=NSF&from=news

Ellen works for the U.S. Army Public Health Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.  One of her roles there is to help implement the DOD Human Tick Test Kit Program, which is a tick identification and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing service for ticks that have been found biting military personnel, dependents, and DOD civilian employees.

Through this program, Ellen has amassed a unique dataset on the species ID and pathogen status of  >25,000 ticks removed from humans.   Ellen's data reveal a strking shift in which tick species is most likely to attack humans in southern vs northeastern states.

Here are photos of Ellen (Photo 1) and her team hard at work identifying and testing ticks (photos courtesy of  the US Army Public Health Command). Thanks for all your contributions, Ellen!

 

Cottonmouth at MNWR

Large cottonmouth in coastal North Carolina (photo by Teresa Moody).

The Secret Life of Ticks

Questing nymphal blacklegged ticks

 

 

 

Fort McCoy-August 2012

Another successful trip to Fort McCoy.  This time we brought along our bird bander, Nate.  Not many birds were netted, but some of them did have ticks!!!!  We also saw a few young medium mammals.  This little opossum was very cute :).  This mole was enjoying the refugia in one of our pitfall buckets and was happy to return to her tunneling when released.

North Carolina at 98F - whew!

The only critters stirring (other than silly us) are the ones that get to cool off in the swamp...

Predatory ant investigations, TTRS

Goodness...gracious...great balls of fire!

It's HOT out there!!!!  Trap Phase 23 was quite successful.  Many new captures joined the study this trap session.  We caught several young animals, as well as several breeding male animals.  This was the biggest vole we have seen yet....and even though he had small ears (could barely get a sample), he made up for it in other areas.  Needless to say, he was quite active in the bucket during our processing time.  Also pictured is a sorex spp. shrew next to a 1.7 mL MCT tube.  Pretty neat little guys and they are loaded with ticks here in Wisconsin-this one had over 2 dozen larvae attached!!!  Hard to believe they can endure that much blood loss.  Also pictured is a Western Ribbon Snake caught near one of our cameras.  Lastly, we are seeing ticks questing in the tick gardens, despite the midwest draught and high temps.  Over and out!

Ms. Teresa's baby Broadhead Skinks have hatched!