A Surprisingly Interesting Longread About Ticks
Ticks are everywhere, and they all have Lyme disease, and there’s probably one on you right now, and we once pulled over a hundred out of our dog after a single day in the woods of West Windsor, NJ, and once I was in the shower and reached back and found something on my back and thought I had a tumor but it turned out to be a super-fat tick that had been there for a whole day so now everytime I have an inexplicable ache I assume I have Lyme disease:
The larva is a wisp of an animal about the size of a grain of salt, hatched within the past few weeks. Once a tick larva emerges from its egg, it immediately begins searching for a host. Scientists call this behavior questing, although a questing black-legged tick doesn’t have a lot in common with Sir Galahad. It just finds a good place to wait — on a stem of jewelweed, say, or a branch of barberry — in the hope of snagging onto a passing mammal.
My good barbed, tooth-shaped mouthpart pierces the skin of men,
My protein-rich saliva penetrateth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten
Because my heart is pure.
