Jul 13, 2019 02:23 AM
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/...or-humans/
EXCERPT: . . . According to the new report out of North Carolina, the latest victim there was a young bull in Surry County at the border with Virginia. At the time of its death, the doomed beast had more than 1,000 ticks on him. The official cause of death was acute anemia ... The bull’s owner had lost four other cattle the same way since 2018.
[...] Experts fear ... the rampage [...will continue...], siphoning life out of animals and eventually transmitting diseases, potentially deadly ones, to humans. The tick—the Asian longhorned tick, or Haemaphysalis longicornis—was first found terrorizing a sheep in New Jersey in 2017 and has established local populations in at least 10 states since it sneaked in. Its invasive sweep is due in large part to the fact that a single well-fed female can spawn up to 2,000 tick clones parthenogenetically—that is, without mating—in a matter of weeks. And unlike other ticks that tend to feast on a victim for no more than seven days, mobs of H. longicorni can latch on for up to 19 days.
[...] In China and South Korea, the tick is known to spread SFTSV .... H. longicorni is also known to transmit Rickettsia japonica ... and Theileria orientalis ... It has also been found harboring relatives of US pathogens, including those that cause anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, and the Powassan virus. So far, health investigators haven’t found the ticks harboring any of these germs. But there’s a risk that at any point they could be introduced, Dr. Pritt notes. And, if they are, the diseases could easily spread like wildfire through the ravenous hordes of ticks. (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: . . . According to the new report out of North Carolina, the latest victim there was a young bull in Surry County at the border with Virginia. At the time of its death, the doomed beast had more than 1,000 ticks on him. The official cause of death was acute anemia ... The bull’s owner had lost four other cattle the same way since 2018.
[...] Experts fear ... the rampage [...will continue...], siphoning life out of animals and eventually transmitting diseases, potentially deadly ones, to humans. The tick—the Asian longhorned tick, or Haemaphysalis longicornis—was first found terrorizing a sheep in New Jersey in 2017 and has established local populations in at least 10 states since it sneaked in. Its invasive sweep is due in large part to the fact that a single well-fed female can spawn up to 2,000 tick clones parthenogenetically—that is, without mating—in a matter of weeks. And unlike other ticks that tend to feast on a victim for no more than seven days, mobs of H. longicorni can latch on for up to 19 days.
[...] In China and South Korea, the tick is known to spread SFTSV .... H. longicorni is also known to transmit Rickettsia japonica ... and Theileria orientalis ... It has also been found harboring relatives of US pathogens, including those that cause anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, and the Powassan virus. So far, health investigators haven’t found the ticks harboring any of these germs. But there’s a risk that at any point they could be introduced, Dr. Pritt notes. And, if they are, the diseases could easily spread like wildfire through the ravenous hordes of ticks. (MORE - details)