Introduction: When it comes to mosquitoes, everyone is no stranger, that is a nasty guy. The disturbing buzz of dreams, the endless itching after sucking blood, all make people hate it to the bone, but the most terrible thing is the mosquito's terrible disease transmission ability, malaria, filariasis, dengue fever and so on are all diseases it can spread.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > ticks: blood-sucking, spreading disease</h1>
Therefore, mosquitoes deserve to be the most terrifying creatures on the planet, but you know that in addition to mosquitoes, there is another terrible creature around us. It is very similar to mosquitoes, and can also suck blood, spread diseases, and in severe cases, cause death.
It is the tick, the second largest vector of infectious diseases after mosquitoes. Ticks, also known as flat lice, grass crawlers, ticks, belong to the general family of parasites of the arachnoid family of limb animals, under the family Tick, it can be divided into hard ticks, soft ticks and ticks.
So far, a total of 899 species of ticks have been found worldwide, and there are 124 species in 9 genera in our country. Ticks are metamorphosed organisms that live in four stages: eggs, larvae, nymphs, and adults. In appearance, ticks have an oval body, 4 pairs of feet on the abdomen, and the color is mainly reddish-brown and gray-brown. Before sucking blood, adults are between 2 and 10 mm long, with a bulge on the back and a flattened abdomen. Once the blood is sucked, the body length can be several times the original, or even 30mm, like a small ball.
Below we take the hard tick as an example, because the soft tick lives more underground and does not have a lot of contact with humans, while the hard tick is different, it is active on the ground. Especially in recent years, more and more people have run to the countryside or the wild, which has increased the chance of contact with hard ticks.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > hard ticks with three hosts in their lifetime</h1>
The biggest feature of the hard tick is its hard head and mouth organs, which can be directly inserted into the human skin to suck blood. The hard tick will find three hosts in its lifetime, the first host appears in its larval stage, when the hard tick larvae are not large, the requirements for the host are not very high, usually based on small animals such as voles.
As the hard tick larvae continue to absorb nutrients, they begin to molt and enter the nymph stage, at which point it will fall off the first host. The hard tick that enters the nymph stage will begin to look for a second host, because the nymph will be larger than the larvae, so the second host will also change, and the rabbit is a good choice.
After successful parasitization to a second host, the hard tick nymphs then begin to absorb nutrients until they reach the next stage, the adults. After entering the adult stage, the hard tick will finally find another host, which is its third host. Again, the old rule is that the tick will look for a larger host, such as dogs, pigs and even humans.
So, how did this guy find the host? In terms of finding a host, ticks are a clever guy. When a tick needs to find a new host, it finds a taller leaf or grass to lie on its end and then holds itself in place with one pair of feet, while the remaining three pairs of feet are as open as possible.
Once a mammal is nearby, ticks will frantically swing their 6 feet (ticks are very sensitive to carbon dioxide and temperature), and as long as one foot can catch the animal, it can climb on it smoothly. This is very similar to the common ear of the village, when passing by this plant, it sticks to itself without paying attention.
I don't think anyone wants to have a blood-sucking bug on their skin, let alone ticks, which often appear in swarms. But what is more unacceptable than blood sucking is that tick bites can spread disease.
For example, tick palsy: mostly occurs in children, manifested as acute ascending paralysis, which can be killed by respiratory failure; tick bite fever: fever, chills, headache, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms appear a few days after tick blood sucking; Lyme disease: manifested as fever, headache, fatigue, chronic erythema migratory, arthritis, cardiovascular and nervous system and other organs, multi-system damage and other symptoms.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > what to do if you are bitten by a tick</h1>
So how do ticks infect humans with these diseases? The culprit is the "anesthetic fluid" it secretes, which, like mosquitoes, need to give humans anesthesia when sucking blood, so that they can suck it cool. These viruses and bacteria exist in the "anesthetic solution" of ticks, and it is worth pointing out that not all ticks will carry viruses and bacteria.
However, if the tick has just been inserted into the skin, as long as it is taken away in time, it is basically fine. How to deal with ticks in this situation, there have been many sayings on the Internet, for example, with cigarette butts or with fire, ticks will be scalded and fall; directly pull it out.
Then I deliberately checked the information and found that the two mentioned above were actually not very reliable. Let's say burn it with cigarette butts or burn it with fire, because the exoskeleton of ticks is not very thick, and it is easy to burn ticks in their own skin at high temperatures, and they may burn themselves in this panic, so this method cannot be said to be particularly reliable.
Then say that it is directly pulled out, dare to say that this method must not have seen the tick mouthparts, tick mouthparts are as barb-like as the bow and arrow, if the external force is directly hard to pull, it will be directly broken in the human body, and then cause inflammation.
So the real way to encounter ticks in the wild is, 1. Use alcohol or iodine wine, drop alcohol or iodine wine on the tick, which will make it feel very uncomfortable, and then drill out of the skin. 2. Pick it out, you can also use a small thing such as a needle to pick it out along the place where it is bitten by a tick.
However, these two methods are used in emergency situations, and you should go to the hospital in time after the fact, after all, there is no big mistake in being careful.