Overview

Lone Star ticks are found mostly in woodlands with dense undergrowth and around animal resting areas. The larvae do not carry disease-causing germs (although they still inject allergic saliva when they bite), but the nymphal and adult stages can transmit the germs causing Human (Monocytic Ehrlichiosis), Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and ‘Stari’ borreliosis. Lone Star ticks are aggressive human biters, and their bite is associated with the development of a red meat allergy (alpha-gal syndrome) in some people. Read more about Lone Star ticks.

Field Notes

Adults are active April-late August and can be found questing for larger animals, such as dogs, coyotes, deer, cattle, and humans on tall grass in shade or at the tips of low lying branches and twigs. Females are easily recognized by a single white dot in the center of a brown body, with the males having spots or streaks of white pigment around the outer edge of the body. Females require a week to 10 days or more to engorge and can lay 2,500-3,000 eggs. Nymph stages typically are questing a bit lower and latch on to hosts from shoe to shin level—but they crawl fast so that by the time you might notice them, they’re already waist-high. Larvae typically latch on by the hundreds, and a good way to get them off quickly before they attach is with sticky duct tape.

Dig a little deeper

The “Newest” Tick in (some) Towns

It may be new to you, but the Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum) was actually the first North American tick species to be formally described, with reports dating back to the late 1700s. The Southeastern, South-central, and mid-Atlantic states are ground zero for this tick, but a 2014 study revealed that Lone Star ticks can now be found as far west as Colorado and Wyoming and as far north as Maine.

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Lone Star Ticks Aren’t Transmitting Lyme Disease Borrelia

Lone Star ticks (Amblyomma americanum) are the main human-biting ticks in southeastern and southcentral regions of the U.S., accounting for over 90% of reported tick bites in the south. While Lone Star ticks have long been considered incompetent to transmit Lyme-group Borrelia, that belief has been increasingly called into question following publication of reported detection of B. burgdorferi DNA in 2 A. americanum ticks removed from humans, and in humans bitten by A. americanum (Clark et al. 2013, Int J Med Sci).

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Update: Lone star ticks are not spreading Lyme disease

A new paper out in the Journal of Medical Entomology presents a 30-year review of research that concludes that lone star ticks (Amblyomma americanum) do not transmit the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi.

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As Lone Star ticks appear in RI, TickEncounter.org helps decode tick danger

“University of Rhode Island researcher Dr. Thomas Mather said, since the 1980s, Rhode Island reports of the Lone Star tick have mostly been confined to Prudence Island”. However, in the past year, researchers have started to see a few of the insects in Jamestown.

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