What are ticks and what do they look like?
Ticks are small, blood sucking arthropods related to spiders, mites and scorpions. There are many different species of tick living in Britain, each preferring to feed on the blood of different animal hosts. If given the opportunity some of them will feed on human blood too. There are four stages of the life-cycle: egg, larva, nymph, and adult. To the naked eye the larvae look like specks of soot, while nymphs are slightly larger, pinhead or poppy seed size. With their eight legs, nymph and adult ticks resemble small spiders. Once a tick has started to feed, its body will become filled with blood. As the blood sac fills the adult tick generally becomes lighter in colour and can reach the size of a small pea, generally grey in colour. Nymph ticks only swell slightly. The tick bite itself is totally painless and most people will only know they have been bitten if they become aware of a feeding adult tick attached to them. However, it is the pinhead size nymph that is the most likely to bi
