Female ticks laying their eggs in the leaf litter

These engorged female blacklegged ticks fed on deer during the first week of  November, and over the past 5 weeks have been converting the blood meal into a clutch of up to 2000 eggs.   Now they are beginning to oviposit, down in the leaf litter.

Go to the most recent Lyme Gradient blog post

Drone's-eye view of our tick survival field enclosures

Blacklegged ticks feeding on white-tailed deer (Oak Ridge, Tennessee)