When a tick is on my skin, what compels it to head towards a “hairier” part of my body? How does it innately just “know” where the primo-tick-real-estate is? Does it see hair or something?
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The ticks suck your blood so they just chew into wherever and burrow. They have some kind of enzyme or something so you don’t feel them I would guess. I’d rather have a tick than a botfly larvae in me. Ticks are easy to manage botflies you can’t get out untill they’re disgustingly big and it’s like my biggest nightmare lol.
Do yourself a favor and do not look up botfly larvae in humans lol. You won’t sleep outside ever again.
I think they head generally upwards, away from gravity.. for eg they climb up a grass stem until they reach its tip then they hang about there until an amimal brushes past and they can latch into it. They probably also have some kind if olfactory sense to smell that it is an animal that is brushing past and that it can transfer to. And then once they are on the animal, they just head upwards again, away from the direction of gravity – until they land up in armpits, under the tail, the ears, where they can dig in
Ticks gravitate toward body heat. Typically, higher surface body temperature is associated with more blood vessels near the surface of the skin. The head and groin, with or without hair, have a higher surface temperature and are more vascular (think of how much a small scalp laceration or genital laceration bleeds compared to other body areas). Ticks have also been found in armpits, butt cracks, and other warm places.
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