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Comment by joyjoyjoy | Hacker News Reader

"Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs."

This is very interesting advise. I always thought ticks drop from trees? no? I actually wear a hat sometimes in the forrest because of this. Am I stupid?

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I’m surprised at this misconception about ticks falling from trees. Growing up in northern California, it seems to be common knowledge among my friends and family that tall grass is where you’ve got to be careful.

The tick causing the spike in Lyme disease, the deer tick, likes to hang out in grass. Other ticks behave differently; there's a horrifying story near the end of the article about a tick in Mexico hiding in stucco...

not stupid, they can. Usually they climb undergrowth and wait on a blade of grass or twig or something and grab on to something walking by.

Inadvertently wandering through (or for a puppy sleeping in) a deer nest where there's hundreds or thousands of nymph ticks is a real life horror.

Ticks do not drop from trees. They almost always climb up your legs. They are generally below waist height.

The other day a tick dropped from a tree onto my computer screen. I was sitting under the tree. Ticks drop from trees.

Trees and brush sure. And a tick can definitely climb a tree. But dropping down isn't the way they generally attach. They hold onto grass and low branches waiting for animals to brush past them.

They don't really have a mechanism to alert them to the presence of animals walking below them fast enough for this to be practical for them.

I had at least twenty ticks as a kid, all on my scalp. I used to spend a lot of time in the woods.

This was before Lyme had spread, though. I still remember sitting in class feeling my hair and feeling the back of a tick.

So .. I think they must be on trees and bushes, I’ve never had one elsewhere.

Sure they're on bushes and grass and low trees and they climb up your body to your scalp. They don't drop down from trees onto your scalp.

ticks natural hosts are mice, deer, moose and other wildlife that lives in scrublands and mixed forests. This means optimally they will be on grass or scrub that is between mouse and moose height which, coincidentally lines up with human height. Ticks will hold on to leaves and grass with their back legs and hold their front legs outstretched. When a potential hosts passes by they will quickly climb aboard. Many ticks will climb aboard from low grass or even leaf litter which is why treating your shoes and socks works. However they can be on hanging branches or taller grass and shrubs which is why treating all your clothes with permethrin is a good idea.

Ticks do not jump run hop or make any fast movements. They are slow crawlers and do not drop out of trees onto you. They do have a very sensitive organ called a Haller's organ[0] which is an olfactory organ that can also sense humidity, C02 and Temperature.

Lyme's disease isn't the only thing you have to worry about getting from Ticks. They can also carry Tularemia fever, Powassan virus, Ehrlichiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

Ticks are resistant to cold weather but one of their primary hosts, mice, are not. So after a particularly cold winter there may be less ticks the following Summer. However, many people would say the Northeast U.S. had a long cold and snowy winter but the early and long lasting snow cover provided the mice and other subnivean zone animals with lots of cover and protection from the cold so this Summer is actually turning out to be a bad one for ticks (at least in the NE U.S.).

In our household, we do thorough tick checks on everyone after a day spent outside or in the woods. This includes meticulously checking hair and armpits and a self-check around the groin.

You can help your own property by cutting 1.5 inch PVC pipe into 3-5 inch sections and stuffing it with permethrin soaked cotton balls. Mice will use these to build nests and any ticks coming into contact with the mice will die on contact[1]

Do not get Permethrin near any invertebrates or aquatic wildlife that you do not want to kill[2]

Edit: product we use in our household which we buy at the local outdoor store but is also available online[3]

[0]https://entomologytoday.org/2018/01/16/up-close-look-tiny-se...

[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1941927

[2]http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/metiram-propox...

[3]https://sawyer.com/products/permethrin-insect-repellent-trea...

Ticks don’t seem to fall from trees when “questing”. Usually they are knee level or below [1]. But if they are on a tree branch and you bump it then it could climb on you.

https://tickencounter.org/faq/tick_habitat#tickhabitat_quest...

Tall grass is where the tick action is at. Also sitting down in grass, especially when your ankles are exposed (when not tucking in pants legs into socks or not wearing gaiters)

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