Male hard ticks usually die after mating with one or more females, although some may continue to live for several months. Adult ticks seek host animals to feed on, and after engorgement on blood, they quickly mate. Soft ticks prefer to feed on birds or bats and are seldom found on dogs or cats.įemales deposit from 3,000 to 6,000 eggs on the ground. Soft ticks do not have the hard shield and they are shaped like a raisin. Hard ticks, like the common American dog tick, have a hard shield just behind the mouth parts (sometimes incorrectly called the head) unfed hard ticks are shaped like a flat seed. There are two groups of ticks, sometimes called hard ticks and soft ticks. Ticks take several days to complete feeding. Ticks are efficient carriers of disease because they attach firmly when sucking blood, feed slowly and may go unnoticed for a considerable time while feeding. "Ticks are efficient carriers of disease." Ticks are parasites that feed on the blood of their host, which can be an animal or a human. Adult insects by comparison have six legs and one pair of antennae. All adult ticks have eight legs and have no antennae. Although ticks are commonly thought of as insects, they are actually arachnids similar to scorpions, spiders, and mites.
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