Lone Star Tick
Amblyomma americanum
Description 2
The Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum) was the first tick to be described in the United States, in 1754. Female Lone Star Ticks have a whitish spot (usually just one) on the back near the back end of the scutum (dorsal shield). Males lack this white spot. Adults parasitize medium and large mammals (including cattle and White-tailed Deer), and the larvae and nymphs feed on a wide variety of small to large mammals and ground-feeding birds Bishopp and Trembley (1945) counted around 4800 ticks, mainly Lone Star nymphs, on a single ear of a deer. Since the late 1980s, researchers have come to view this tick as an important vector of several diseases affecting humans.The diseases are human monocytic (or monocytotropic) ehrlichiosis (HME), Ehrlichia ewingii ehrlichiosis, and southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI).
Sources and Credits
- (c) David Hill, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-ND), http://www.flickr.com/photos/49089395@N04/4690984048
- Adapted by okaloosascience from a work by (c) Shapiro, Leo, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/17570701
