Mather, aka the TickGuy, is a veteran of almost four decades of hunting and researching ticks, and educating and helping the public protect itself from the blood suckers. But, he says, many people mistakenly think tick season ends when fall hits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMost people are quite surprised,\u201d he says. \u201cYou could do a survey: Most people think ticks die when it gets cold. It\u2019s a surprise that October and November are actually the fifth and sixth \u2018tickiest\u2019 months of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tick situation in Rhode Island and New England this year has been moderate, Mather says. Summer\u2019s drought probably curtailed nymph-stage ticks and may have prevented many of them from getting the blood meal ticks need at each stage of their lifecycle (larva, nymph and adult).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat could mean there will be fewer adult stage ticks. But we\u2019ve been surprised in the past,\u201d he says. \u201cI struggled at many of my regular sites to find nymphs this year. But there were a few sites, especially along the south coast, that had an exceptional number of nymph ticks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Adult blacklegged ticks are just now starting to become active in Rhode Island, in just the past week, crowdsourced reports of adult deer ticks have come from Ontario, Vermont, Massachusetts and West Virginia, according to data collected from the TickEncounter\u2019s TickSpotters program. TickSpotters<\/a> allows people from all over to upload photos of ticks that they\u2019ve picked off themselves or their pets and get a quick tick ID check and a risk assessment, while the crowdsourced information provides data to assess tick population trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe first one we got through TickSpotters was Sept. 23 from way up in Vermont,\u201d Mather says. \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen any in Rhode Island just yet, but I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll start coming any day now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While there are about nine species of ticks encountered in Rhode Island, and across the U.S., the most prevalent are blacklegged ticks (or deer ticks), lone star ticks and American dog ticks. Their lifecycles overlap somewhat, with stages of each most active at different times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, May, the \u201ctickiest\u201d month of the year, has the greatest diversity of ticks. Adult deer ticks that didn\u2019t feed in the fall may still be active, along with deer tick nymphs, and adult dog ticks and lone star ticks being most active. Lone star tick nymphs are also around in May. But their seasons come to an end. Late August and September are pretty quiet when it comes to ticks, and that lulls people into thinking tick \u201cseason\u201d is over, Mather says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then\u2013WHAM. By October, it\u2019s mainly adult blacklegged ticks that people have to worry about. äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾ 85% of TickSpotters\u2019 submissions from around the country during October and November are for adult blacklegged ticks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And those adult deer ticks you encounter in your trek through the woods started their lifecycle in spring of 2021. The larvae hatched that June \u2013 from eggs laid by adult ticks that fed the previous fall and that survived through the winter. After being active in July and August, the larvae detached from their host, made it through the winter and became nymphs this past spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nymphs fed in May, June or July, detached, and through a process called molting, transformed into this fall\u2019s adults. One out of two (or more) adult stage deer ticks carry the germ for Lyme disease \u2013 compared with about one in four of the nymph-stage deer ticks earlier in the year. The reason is, the adult stage has had two opportunities to feed and pick up the germs for Lyme from rodents, mainly white-footed mice. They can also pick up germs for babesiosis, anaplasmosis, a relapsing fever disease, and Powassan virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adult blacklegged ticks will be active this fall until the temperature stays consistently cold \u2013 not disappearing at the first hard frost. The first frost usually comes between Oct. 10 and 20, says Mather, and after that the numbers of adult ticks actually soar until about Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy then, it\u2019s getting routinely cold enough to keep them from being active,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt has to be sustainably cold because if it is below freezing overnight but 40 degrees the next day, these ticks will be out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n