The life of a tick

Ticks are a scary, creepy crawler for clients to find on their pets or themselves. There is instant panic about how to dispose of it in the best way, what it means for their pet, and what it means for other family members. When talking to clients who have encountered a tick or are from a heavy tick-populated area, helping them understand more about ticks can help veterinary teams get information quicker, like whether certain diseases are of concern, and potentially put a stressed client at ease.

During her lecture at the 2025 American Veterinary Medical Association Convention in Washington, DC, Susan E. Little, DVM, PhD, DACVM, Krull-Ewing professor of parasitology at the Center for Veterinary Health Sciences at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, broke down ticks and their life stages to help give clients a better understanding of these threats to pets.

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The tick family tree

“So we have 5 [tick species]. We used to talk about the big 4 in veterinary medicine in the US: Amblyomma, Ixodes, Dermacentor, and Rhipicephalus. And now we have the big 5, because we have Haemaphysalis longicornis, the Asian Longhorned tick that has established in almost half the states in the US, and it's established here in the DC metro area as well,” Little explained during her lecture address.

With the 5, each goes through multiple life stages, larvae, nymph, and then either adult female or male, except for the Hemophilus, there is only one female, a larva, and a nymph, no males. Little explained that these ticks reproduce through parthenogenesis clonally, and so the next generation can hatch out of the larvae without requiring a male to fertilize.

Besides the big 5, there are several other species out there, including the most feared tick, Ixodes scapularis, also known as the deer tick or black legged tick. This tick is the one that transmits Anaplasmosis, Ehrlichia muris eauclairensis, and the agent for Lyme disease.

As larvae, the ticks feed for about 3-5 days, nymphs for 5-7, and then adults feed for 7-14 days, sometimes even longer. For ticks, their physiology is also different between the stages, so transmission can vary. A cool thing about ticks, according to Little, is that they each make their way in the world a little differently. For example, most ticks she discussed in her lecture that most ticks she talked about are supported by wildlife and then spill onto people and pets from the wildlife that is supporting them, but then there is the Brown Dog Tick.

RELATED: What affects the transmission of tick-borne pathogens?

“That's the tick that wants to be a flea. It lives in homes and kennels. It infests premises where there are dogs, and so it's really just dogs. It's still a 3-host tick, but the larvae, the host for the larvae, the nymph, and the adult, are all dogs, right? Whereas for the others, they're supported on wildlife, and then spill over to the dogs or people. So a little bit of differences there,” said Little.

Most people think that ticks are passive questers, where they just crawl up vegetation and wave their first pair of legs until something walks by and brushes up against the vegetation so it can transfer over. While that is true for some species, like the Dermacentor and Ixodes, the Amblyomma does not wait. It will go out and run after hosts in the wild because it is really drawn to the pheromones that are given off, carbon dioxide, as well as the shadow, and movements of a potential host. Dog ticks are very similar to this as well; they will pick up on cues in the environment if a dog is there and go after it, and all its species.

Conclusion

“The number one thing we can do to change the situation for dogs in the field is advocate for tick control. Dogs are better off protected from ticks than not. We don't know when they're going to come out. We used to talk about tick season, and now I say it's always tick season, right? So it used to be spring and summer. It's also fall, winter, and winter is not as cold as it used to be.”

When it comes to protecting patients, year-round tick control is administered by the calendar because once ticks make their way to the animal, it is too late. Helping clients understand the life and roles of each tick, and how they move, can help tell clients that these ticks are a threat, and the more protection we can provide patients, and the education provided to clients, canine patients in your clinic can hopefully remain tick-free in any climate or location.

Reference

1. Little S. Perfect Timing: Protecting Dogs From Tick-Borne Infections. Presented at: American Veterinary Medical Association Convention; Washington, DC; July 18-22, 2025.