Ticks, Lyme disease creeping northward
By Meg Haskell, BDN Staff | June 15, 2011

The recent cycle of chilly, rainy weather may be discouraging for sun-starved Mainers, but deer ticks, those minute carriers of the organism that causes Lyme disease, are liking it just fine.“When the ground is dry, they just kind of hunker down under the leaves and they don’t come out until it rains again,” said Chuck Lubelczyk, a field biologist with the vector-borne disease lab at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute in South Portland.Scientists searching for deer ticks to study often strike out when conditions are dry.“But if we go looking after a heavy rain, they’ll be out like gangbusters,” he said.>> Read More

 

Deer are important in the life cycle of black-legged ticks.

Deer are important in the life cycle of black-legged ticks.