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Pest Management Priducts Division of CSPA
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Ticks occur in two basic types, hard and soft, with a life cycle of four stages- egg, larva, nymph and adult. The life history varies considerably in different types of ticks.
Sucking blood is the mode of feeding- hence the term blood meal- for the larva, nymph, and adult states. The larvae, nymphs, and adults of soft ticks each feed on hosts many times, while the hard tick feeds on blood only once during each of the three stages. Some ticks spend their whole life cycle on one host, while with others, each stage feeds on a different host. Dogs and small children commonly bring ticks into the home from outdoors. Walking in the woods or in fields exposes adults. For the most part, ticks do not normally infest homes, as do fleas. However, ticks are more dangerous to humans and harder to find on the body.
Most active from April through October in the U.S., ticks can transmit diseases to humans and attack animals until the first frost. Requiring humidity and moderate temperature to flourish, in the absence of a host or proper conditions, ticks will simply await proper conditions. Some ticks are highly fecund- capable of producing many offspring. A single tick can lay more than 18,000 eggs.
Being larger than the deer tick associated with Lyme Disease, dog ticks and wood ticks are easier to spot on the body.