How much can ticks eat? - briefly
Adult ticks can ingest blood volumes equal to about half to a full times their own body weight, usually 0.2–0.5 ml per meal, with larger species reaching up to 1 ml. This intake represents a several‑fold increase relative to their dry mass.
How much can ticks eat? - in detail
Ticks obtain nutrients exclusively from the blood of their hosts. The volume of blood a tick ingests varies with species, life stage, and the duration of attachment.
Adult females of the common hard tick Ixodes scapularis can expand to five times their unfed weight, storing up to 0.5 ml of blood. Smaller species such as Dermacentor variabilis ingest approximately 0.2 ml, while large tropical species like Amblyomma variegatum may hold up to 1 ml. Male ticks feed minimally, often taking only a few microliters, because their primary role is to locate mates rather than to engorge.
Larval ticks, which are only a few hundred micrometers long, consume roughly 0.01 ml of blood before molting into nymphs. Nymphs increase their intake to about 0.05 ml, sufficient to support the transition to the adult stage.
Feeding periods differ markedly:
- Larvae: 2–5 days
- Nymphs: 4–7 days
- Adult females: 7–14 days, sometimes longer for larger species
- Adult males: 1–3 days, often intermittent
During attachment, the tick secretes anticoagulants and immunomodulatory proteins that keep the host’s blood flowing and suppress local immune responses. This allows the tick to ingest blood continuously until it reaches its maximal engorgement capacity, after which it detaches to digest and lay eggs (in females).
The amount of blood a tick can store directly influences its reproductive output. A fully engorged female Ixodes may lay between 1,000 and 2,500 eggs, each egg deriving its nutrients from the blood meal. Consequently, the feeding capacity of ticks is a critical factor in their life-cycle success and in the transmission potential of tick-borne pathogens.