When my dog gets ticks, there are often two or three in the same place. Why? She’s a big dog, and they have plenty of room to spread out, but they don’t.
[Open Shameful Pun]
If they stay closer together, then the group has less of a chance of getting ticked off.
[Close Shameful Pun]
:: Ducks to avoid large quantities of vegetable matter. ::
WAG: the area is inflamed by the first tick. The skin is less covered by hair and is warmer, both of which make the area more attractive to subsequent ticks, whose supply of blood is not significantly diminished by the earlier tick.
picmr
Well, if you can learn anything from years and years of Warner Brothers Cartoons… I presume it’s because they have to stay together in order to build the tiny flea circus.
KenP, I’m not sure why several ticks attach at the same place - picmr’s WAG sounds pretty good to me - but I can tell you why you will often find one large tick with a smaller tick beneath it. The large tick is a female, and the smaller tick beneath her is a male that she is probably mating with. At least, this is what my vet says. Several small ticks surrounding a large tick might be several males hoping for a chance at Big Momma.
Larger groups that include more than one Big Momma might be attracted for the reason stated by picmr.
Big Mommas are the ones that cause tick paralysis - a single female tick can take down a pretty large dog, as well as a small child.
Sickest joke I ever heard in my life:
“Mom! Billy’s eating grapes off the dog again!”
(shudder!)
Anth,
You grossed me out on that one, and made me realize what an idiot I am. I didn’t read the OP very well. I thought it was talking about FLEAS, not TICKS! Geez, it was already a flakey response to begin with, but then I really screwed that one up!
This is very timely, all this tick talk.