Tick Facts for Kids

21 Tick Facts For Kids

1. Tick is the common name for a group of parasitic arachnids that are part of the Ixodoidea superfamily.
2. Ticks are not true insects, they are arachnids, just like spiders and scorpions.
3. Ticks and their common ancestors first appeared around 100 million years ago.
4. Ticks can be found on every continent, except in Antarctica.
5. Ticks thrive in warm, humid climates and climate change is extended their range all over the world.
6. Ticks are carnivorous and feed exclusively on animal matter.
7. The diet of a tick is entirely blood from one or more hosts, like amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles.
8. The host’s blood preferred by a tick varies by species.
9. Ticks hunt out their hosts by sensing body heat, moisture, odor, and/or movement in their environment.
10. There are around 850 living tick species living all over our planet.
11. All tick species are parasites because they feed off the warm blood of a living host.
12. All tick species go through four different stages in their lifecycle: egg, larva, nymph, and adult.
13. Tick species have a body length range between 0.11 and 0.25 inches.
14. There are two types of tick species, hard ticks (Ixodidae), and soft ticks (Argasidae).
15. Hard tick species have a hard shield that covers their bodies.
16. Soft tick species do not have a hard shield covering their bodies.
17. There is one tick species that is neither a hard tick or a soft tick and it is the Nuttalliella Namaqua.
18. The deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) is one of the smallest tick species with a length of only 0.11 inches.
19. The American dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis) is the largest tick species with a length of 0.25 inches.
20. Ticks can be dangerous to humans, they can transmit several pathogens, like bacteria, protozoa, and viruses.
21. A few of those pathogens are African tick bite fever, Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever and the Heartland virus.

Tick Pictures

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the below images will be helpful for your research on ticks. Below are three pictures of various tick species. These pictures should help you better understand the different types of ticks found around the world.

A picture of the deer tick (ixodes scapularis).

A picture of a tick on a human hand.

A picture of a tick buried into human skin.