How does a tick stalk its victim? - briefly
Ticks detect heat, carbon dioxide, and vibrations, then climb onto blade-like vegetation and adopt a “questing” stance to await a passing host; contact triggers them to grasp the skin with their forelegs and embed their hypostome. This rapid attachment initiates blood feeding.
How does a tick stalk its victim? - in detail
Ticks locate potential hosts through a combination of sensory mechanisms. Their Haller’s organ, situated on the first pair of legs, detects carbon dioxide, heat, and host odors such as ammonia and lactic acid. Visual cues assist when the host is within a few centimeters, especially in daylight‑active species.
When a host passes within the tick’s detection radius, the arthropod climbs onto the animal’s surface using its forelegs. It then engages in a questing behavior: extending its front legs to maintain contact with the host’s skin while the rear legs anchor to the substrate.
Attachment proceeds in several stages:
- Exploratory probing: The tick inserts its chelicerae into the epidermis to assess suitability.
- Salivary secretion: A cocktail of anticoagulants, immunomodulators, and anti‑inflammatory compounds is released to prevent clotting and suppress host defenses.
- Secure anchoring: The mouthparts embed deeper, forming a cement-like matrix that hardens around the feeding lesion, ensuring long‑term attachment.
During feeding, the tick expands its body by ingesting blood, which it concentrates through a slow‑acting peristaltic pump. The process can last from a few days to over a week, depending on the life stage and species.
Environmental factors—temperature, humidity, and vegetation density—modulate questing activity and success rates. Higher humidity prolongs questing periods, while extreme temperatures reduce activity. The tick’s life cycle stages (larva, nymph, adult) each repeat the host‑seeking and attachment sequence, often targeting different hosts to complete development.