What are Ticks?

What are Ticks?

While many people think ticks are insects, they’re actually arachnids – in the same family as scorpions, mites, and spiders. There are many different varieties of ticks in the US, many of which carry diseases.

Wondering how to identify ticks?

Different species of ticks can be gray, white, brown, black, reddish-brown, or even yellow in color. Adults have flat, oval-shaped, wingless bodies.

When ticks have a blood meal, their bodies will swell and become round, like a kernel of corn. While nymphs and adult ticks have eight legs, tick larvae only have six.

As larvae, ticks are about the size of a grain of sand.  Ticks can bite humans and animals at all stages of their life cycles.