Frontline not withstanding, we’ve found a number of ticks on our little terrier this summer. Mostly little dark reddish brown ones, but recently a few big buff colored ones. One of the latter had one of the little ticks on it, and two of them seemed to be sharing a single bite site with a little tick. Are these offspring, or just parasites on parasites?
And since it would show up soon anyway, here is the obligatory alliteration:
“So nat’ralists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller fleas that bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.”
-Jonathan Swift
Note to mods: JS died in 1745, so copyright on above is long since expired.
I’m just spitballin’ here, so this might not be right. But I looked up Ticks on the ol’ Wikipedia (not the best but hey, it gets the job done) and managed to find this possibility: Physical contact is a tick’s only method of transportation. Ticks cannot jump or fly, although they may drop from their perch and fall onto a host. I’m thinking Little Tick was hitching a ride on Big Tick and BT stopped for food on the way. Just my educated guess here.
Good luck with the ticks, my cat had a few once and they SUCK to deal with! xP
One of my dogs, for some bizarre reason, gets a cluster of ticks (6-10) of all different sizes all biting the exact same place behind one of her ears every once in a while. I think I’ve seen it three times, and I’ve only had her a year. I’ve seen the occasional tick on her elsewhere, but usually it’s a cluster in that one spot (ticks are horrible here). We use advantix instead of frontline, but yeah, she should be protected. Freaks me the hell out.
Are you confusing an engorged tick (the buff colored, big one) with a tick that has not yet fed?
Ticks do seem to associate together, for reasons that I cannot imagine. It may have something to do with access to capilaries just under the surface of the skin. Each takes a bite, and proceeds to swell up with blood. The rate of feeding and moment of attachment may be different, tick to tick, resulting in groups of various sizes.
When full (fully engorged) they drop off the host and seek a place to lay eggs.
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
Reviving this zombie, because at some point I stumbled on the answer:
Only the female ticks feed on blood and engorge. The little ticks on the big ticks are the males. This is how they mate. They bite the female and fertilize them via their mouth!
Wrong. Ticks often do mate on the host (and you may see the males crawling over the female), but the male doesn’t bite the female and “fertilize them via their mouth”.
