The nightmarish Asian longhorned tick has invaded the U.S.—and it can reproduce without mating
It's in at least eight states already, and no one is sure how long it's been here.
By Sara Chodosh November 30, 2018
James Gathany/Wikimedia Commons
When officials from the Centers for Disease Control first encountered longhorned ticks, there were so many crawling in the grass that the investigators found the bugs crawling all over their pants within a few minutes. Thousands of them filled the sheep paddock inspectors were there to examine, where a single ewe lived along with thousands of tiny roommates.
Longhorned ticks weren’t previously known to live in the U.S., much less to live on a solitary sheep in Hunterdon, New Jersey that had never traveled outside of the country. She hadn’t even left the property in years. Yet here was a bug that wasn't supposed to exist on this continent—in droves.
https://www.popsci.com/invasive-tick-asian-longhorned
