Dog Ticks Are Changing Their Diet. You’re on the Menu | Deep Look
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Published 2023-11-28
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DEEP LOOK is an ultra-HD (4K) short video series created by KQED San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. See the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small.
Brown dog ticks are the most widespread ticks in the world, and the most adapted to living among us. Scientists believe they evolved alongside burrowing carnivores like foxes and weasels, and came indoors when we domesticated dogs. That's a problem, because they can transmit bacteria that cause Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a terrible disease that can kill both dogs and humans. Rocky Mountain spotted fever usually occurs in small clusters in the United States and is relatively rare. However, outbreaks in northern Mexico have killed hundreds of people. And rising temperatures due to climate change are sparking some troubling tick behavior. When it’s particularly hot out, brown dog ticks start craving human blood!
---+ Dogs, Wildlife & Tick borne diseases
Assistant professor of animal science at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (youtube.com/@CalPoly) Laura Backus, whose research on the brown dog tick we explored in this episode, has spent a lot of time exploring tick populations in California and Mexico during her Ph.D. and postdoc at the University of California, Davis, (youtube.com/@UCDavis). Check out her team's work exploring the role of wildlife in tick-borne diseases in these papers:
doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjad085 and doi.org/10.7589/jwd-d-22-00179
---+ Learn More About the Brown Dog Tick!
Veterinary specialist in parasitology Filipe Dantas-Torres, who worked with us on this episode, is an expert in the brown dog tick. And he’s got a lot more to say about these parasitic arachnids! Check out his work in this paper: www.cell.com/trends/parasitology/fulltext/S1471-49…
---+ Insecticide Resistant Mosquitos?
Professor of entomology Geoffrey Attardo, of the University of California, Davis, who helped us with this episode specializes in the biology of vector-borne diseases. He’s been investigating the physiological responses to insecticide exposure in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, and the resistance mechanisms they have evolved to deal with environmental toxins. www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-43676-9
---+ Learn how we got those awesome images of the Haller’s Organ here!
Microscopist T Josek took the incredible pictures of the brown dog tick’s Haller’s organ you saw in this episode. Josek is part of Bugscope at the University of Illinois' Beckman Institute: bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/
---+ Find additional resources and a transcript on KQED Science:
www.kqed.org/science/1985541/dog-ticks-are-changin…
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All Comments (21)
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Hello! I produced this episode (with so much help internally from the Deep Look team and externally from the experts we consulted with) and am happy to answer your questions! Ask away!
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Can confirm, after a hike my dog picked up ticks and they all settled on me during the night. After removing them from myself, I checked the dog but she had no ticks on her.
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Ticks, fleas, mosquitoes, and bed bugs are four things that gotta go.
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Around my area, we used to mostly only see Lyme disease in the dogs. Now, lots of them get infected with Anaplasma and even Eherlichia. It's scary seeing the trend over the years.
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"very good boy" was a wholesome and entirely unexpected bit from Deep Look. Please do it again in a future video!
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Least scary Deep Look video
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I love how the science community understands that dogs are very good dogs
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Oh yeah my father got Lyme disease from those. And the doctor doesn't always recognize what it is so if you see a large persistent swollen area don't hesistate to get multiple opinion and early treatment ! Lyme is no joke !
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Noticed the dog ticks coming for me from all directions on a picnic this summer, temps were just under a hundred Not used to ticks marching toward me from a visible distance
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Lol-d at the 'very good dog', LOL-d harder at the 'very good human'
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Kudos to the person who volunteered their arm or leg for the sake of this video!
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Rip the person who sacrificed themselves for the video🫡 Got bit by a tick
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I got RMSF a couple years ago, it was horrible and got me bed-ridden for a month. It is really hard to diagnose, especially in areas where it didn't use to be common (I got it in Houston). My initial symptoms were a lot of abdominal pain and a never ending fever. I went to the ER and they didn't have a clue. Do a blood test and check your liver enzymes. If you have a never ending fever and your liver is messed up, you most likely got RMSF. Good luck!
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These things are brutal. Had one a month ago, it left a purple/black bruise on my arm and when I tried to take it out with tweezers, it felt like someone was stabbing me with a blunt needle. I had to go to emerge to get it removed. They ended up cutting it out, that's how deep it burrowed in.
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I got Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever back in the 90's in Tennessee. The only symptom I had was a big rash centered on the bite, but it was on the middle of my back, so I didn't know about it until somebody else pointed it out to me.
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I guess i can't go outside in the summer anymore without wearing my flea and tick collar!
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Hate hate HATE ticks. They are becoming an issue also here in the mediterranean with the rising tempratures during summer…
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did you tell me i deserve a 'petting frenzy' at the end there
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Thank you, Deep Look team, for making it possible for everyone to get acquainted with various types of amazing tiny creatures inhabiting our planet, weird at times, yet all majestic in their own way.
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That ticks me off! I don't have a dog, and I think 38 °C is the hottest it gets in this part of western North Carolina. I have occasionally caught fleas; I don't know how they got in the house. I've also found a few ticks on myself after I've been in the woods.
