See all of those little dots on this common lint roller? Those are actually tick larvae, just waiting to grow into full-grown bloodsucking critters.
University of Tennessee graduate student Brian Hendricks has gathered more than 10,000 ticks since November for a master's degree project at Ames Plantation. This particular method for gathering ticks is known as a "vegetation drag." Hendricks simply drags a piece of cloth over a section of terrain for 30 seconds to see how many ticks latch on. He's had numerous 30-second drags that gathered more than 100 ticks.
GRAND JUNCTION, Tenn.— In the middle of a sentence Thursday afternoon at Ames Plantation, Brian Hendricks stopped talking and pointed at a black speck on his left thumb, no bigger than a grain of sand.
"That's a tick larvae," Hendricks said. "A lot of people would never notice that."
Hendricks has become an expert on all things tick during the past 10 months while working on a research project that will eventually help him earn his master's degree from the University of Tennessee.
He's learned how to easily distinguish between the various species of ticks that inhabit the vast 18,000-acre landscape at Ames. He's learned where at Ames a person is most likely to be bitten by a tick, and he's learned which diseases are being carried from studying the more than 10,000 ticks he's collected at Ames since the opening day of the 2011-12 deer season last November.
None of the information should be considered frightening, necessarily.
But he's learned things that hunters should certainly consider as they prepare to re-enter the woods during the next few weeks.
"My project is doing two main things for hunters at Ames Plantation," Hendricks said. "It's telling them which places to avoid — places and terrain where they are most likely to be bitten by a tick — and it's telling them where the diseases are.
"Hopefully the results of my project will help change some of the misconceptions that people have about ticks and tick-borne diseases."
One of the chief misconceptions Hendricks is working to change is the misguided belief that Lyme disease should be the main tick-related concern when we go in the woods.
While Lyme disease is definitely present here and plenty dangerous once it's contracted, a person's chances of developing the ailment from a tick bite in western Tennessee are incredibly low. Out of the more than 10,000 ticks collected by Hendricks at Ames, only one has been identified as the infamous deer tick that is known to carry Lyme disease.
However, several other diseases have been found in the ticks collected at Ames. In fact, 40 percent of the ticks collected have been found to be carrying some type of disease pathogen.
"When people think about ticks and tick-borne diseases, they always think about Lyme disease first," Hendricks said. "That's the hardest thing to get across to some people. The chances of someone being infected with Lyme disease are extremely low. But there are plenty of other tick-borne diseases, and your chances of being infected with some of those are much higher."
The tick-borne disease known as Rocky Mountain spotted fever has proved much more common than Lyme disease in the ticks collected at Ames — and though it is treatable, it carries long-term dangers that can be just as frightening as the ones associated with Lyme.
"My son is the chief resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and he said they lose about 3 percent of the patients they see with RMSF," said Dr. Allan Houston, a wildlife biologist who oversees numerous wildlife programs at Ames. "That disease can cause a really bad rash on your palms and on the bottoms of your feet. It can be very serious and sometimes fatal if it's not caught and treated early enough."
RMSF is what's known as a ricettsial disease, and there are many others. They all cause initial symptoms that mimic common influenza, including fever, headaches and joint pain — and they are symptoms that Houston knows all too well.
"One day I just had a fever for no good reason and I felt kind of crappy," Houston said. "The next day I felt really crappy and I went to the doctor since I was about to go on vacation to Hawaii. Since I'd had a tick bite recently, they tested my blood, found ricettsia and treated it pretty easily with Doxycycline."
Besides proving that Lyme disease is rarer than most people think, the research performed at Ames has proved that Lyme is harder to contract than some of the other ailments. While it often takes the deer tick more than 24 hours to infect a person with Lyme disease, the Lonestar tick and dog tick can transmit the other diseases in the time that most people wait between breakfast and lunch.
"If a tick has been on you for at least four hours, you have a very high probability of contracting a rickettsial disease (RMSF) or an Ehrlichial disease if that tick actually had it," said Lauren Maestas, another UT grad student who has collected ticks at a number of sites across the Southeastern United States, including Ames. "With the deer tick, it takes 24 hours for the protein confirmation to change so the disease can move from the tick's midsection to its salivary glands."
Hendricks and Maestas haven't been shocked to find Lonestar ticks, dog ticks and black-legged ticks (aka deer ticks). But they have been surprised to find a species at Ames known as the Gulf Coast tick that has been mostly absent from Tennessee in the past.
Though many people associate tick dangers mostly with walking through tall grass, Hendricks said he has collected ticks from three types of terrain — grassy areas, planted pines and deciduous hardwood forests — and the hardwoods have produced, by far, the most ticks. That's especially interesting when you consider that many Tennessee hunters prefer hardwoods over any other type of setting.
Hendricks has also discovered some good tick-bite prevention tips — even if they came by trial and error.
"I've probably been bitten more than 100 times since I first started collecting here," Hendricks said. "Most of the bites have been right around my midsection because I don't always remember to tuck in my shirt."
So hunters, tuck in your shirts — and pay attention to simple symptoms.
"I haven't felt sick since I started doing this," Hendricks said. "But if I ever do feel sick, I'm going to the doctor right away — and I'm going to tell the doctor I've been exposed to ticks. I think that's good advice for anyone who even suspects they might be dealing with a tick-borne disease."'
