Pictures of Ticks: Photo Gallery of Tick Images

What Is a Tick?

Ticks generally live outdoors in tall grass and foliage. Commonly mistaken for insects, these pests are arachnids that feed on blood from animals and humans. They are a nuisance to hikers, campers, dog walkers, and anybody who works or relaxes outdoors. The most common ticks in New England are the American dog tick and the black-legged tick.

What Does a Tick Look Like?

American dog ticks prefer open areas with little to no tree cover such as grasslands or backyards. They are light brown with mottled markings on their backs. Also called deer ticks, you can find black-legged ticks in densely wooded areas. The males are black, while the females have an orangish-red rear.

How Big Is a Tick?

An American dog tick might get as big as the width of a pencil eraser, while a deer tick is about half that length. These pests grow larger with each life stage but start quite small. Many bites come from nymphs, or juvenile ticks, which can be as little as one-sixteenth of an inch, making them difficult to detect.

Are Ticks Dangerous?

Despite their small size, a tick bite can pose a serious threat to people and pets. Some ticks might transmit pathogens that cause harmful diseases like Lyme disease, babesiosis, and tularemia. Help prevent infections by checking yourself, children, and pets after spending time outside.

Pictures of Ticks

When trying to identify different species, the easiest way to figure out what you’re dealing with is to look at pictures of ticks. Some of these pests are more likely to affect New England homes and businesses than others. Less common types include the Lone star tick, woodchuck tick, brown dog tick, and winter tick.

Tick Images

When a tick bites a person, they can be hard to remove after they latch onto the skin

This photo of a tick on a person’s finger shows the small size of the pest
A person might bring ticks inside a home or business on their shoes or clothes. In this image of a tick on someone’s pants, you can see how the tiny pest may be hard to notice.

Deer Tick Images

Illustration of a female deer tick

Picture of a black-legged tick

Image of a deer tick on skin

Deer ticks are some of the smallest species of ticks. Depending on whether they are male or female, the black-legged tick can be black and brown or have a reddish appearance. When they bite a person or a pet, they might become tangled in their hair, making them harder to remove.

Brown Dog Tick Images

This closeup photo of a brown dog tick shows the pest’s tan and brown back with a mottled pattern.

Wood Tick Images

This photo of a wood tick shows the pest’s colorful appearance with splotches of red and white.

All ticks vary in color. They also might have patterns on their backs like the mottling on a brown dog tick. Pictured last, the wood tick, while not as common in New England, is notable due to its ability to transmit disease. No matte which tick you have in you New England backyard, professional tick services can help keep your family – including the furry ones – safe from these blood suckers.

Tick Images | IdentifyUS

Tick Images | IdentifyUS

These pictures provide some basic views and images of ticks and may include those from identifications made for our customers. Many images have been provided by and attributed to other colleagues, friends and business partners. We greatly appreciate the generosity of those individuals and companies that are willing to share their tick images, drawings and photography with us in order to further your education and understanding of various tick species.. If you have tick images you’d like to share with IdentifyUS, please contact us directly to become an IdentifyUS contributor. We will gladly attribute those images shared by our contributors and will provide reciprocal links to your website(s) as may be desired or useful.

American Dog Tick – Dermacentor variabilis

American Dog Tick (pair)

American Dog Tick (group)

Brown dog tick (pair)

Brown Dog Tick (group)

Deer Ticks on Coin

Deer Tick (group)

Gulf Coast Tick (pair)

Gulf Coast Tick (group)

Lone Star Tick (pair)

Lone Star Tick (group)

Lone Star Ticks on Coin

Rocky Mountain Wood Tick (pair)

Rocky Mountain Wood Tick (group)

Deer tick adult female

Deer tick size comparison

Nepalese tick

Head of a Dog Tick

Bat Tick

Dermacentor variabilis

Ixodes scapularis front view

Female Deer Tick – Ixodes scapularis

Deer tick – Ixodes scapularis

Female deer tick partially engorged

Ixodes scapularis

Female American Dog Tick

Dermacentor variabilis from above

Dermacentor variabilis walking

Dermacentor variabilis face

Dermacentor variabilis front view

Dermacentor variabilis close up

Engorged dog or wood tick

Dog or wood tick about to bite

Dog tick – Dermacentor variabilis

Deer tick – head

Dog or wood tick

Engorged tick on skin

Features of engorged tick

Mouth parts of deer tick

Engorged tick – side view

Face of a tick

Head of engorged tick

Tick frontal view

Head of a tick

Engorged tick

Tick feeding

Lone star tick – Amblyomma americanum

Amblyomma americanum

Pacific blacklegged tick – Ioxedes pacificus

European wood tick – Ixodes ricinus

Ixodus ricinus – chelicera

Ixodes ricinus ticks

Tick Embedded in Skin

Rhipicephalus sanguineus

Rhipicephalus sanguineus – female

Dermacentor andersoni

Amblyomma maculatum

Dermacentor andersoni – female & male

Rhipicephalus microplus – female and male

Rhipicephalus microplus – tropical cattle ticks -female & male

© 2022, IdentifyUS, LLC  •   Needham, MA  02494

[Back To Top]

full description, symptoms and causes

Sometimes they appear in the form of vocalizations – vocal sounds. These muscle contractions occur suddenly, involuntarily and do not pursue any purpose. The child does them against his will, but they are able to disappear for a while or be controlled by the child if he is reminded. But this control is temporary and energy-consuming. If there are both motor and vocal (voice) tics, and they persist for more than a year, then a disease called Tourette’s syndrome is diagnosed.

Tics are one of the most common movement disorders in childhood. According to some reports, they occur in about 20% of children. And often the disorder goes unnoticed, and doctors do not diagnose it. The parents of such a child may believe that he simply has some odd behavior or is “too nervous.” The first symptoms most often occur when the child is 4–6 years old, often in early school age. They are usually most pronounced at 10–12 years of age, and decrease during adolescence. Most often, tics in children disappear on their own. In 1% of cases, they persist into adulthood. One study published in 2002 found that tics occur in 22% of preschool children, 7.8% in primary school age, and 3.4% of adolescents.

Tourette syndrome is much less common, affecting about 3 to 8 out of 1,000 children. It has been observed that boys suffer from this disorder three times more often than girls.

Causes

The causes of nervous tics in children are complex, diverse and not fully understood. It is believed that both heredity and environmental factors play a role in the development of the disease.

There is growing evidence that transient (or transient) tics and persistent motor and auditory tics represent a continuum rather than separate disorders.

According to the current concept, tic disorders and Tourette’s syndrome are polygenic hereditary disorders involving a large number of different genes. The idea that Tourette’s syndrome can be inherited first appeared in 1885. Now scientists estimate the heritability of this disease as 0. 58–0.77, with the risks being highest in first-line relatives of the affected person. Candidate genes have been proposed that are supposedly involved in the development of tic disorders, but their role has not been fully confirmed.

Depending on what is supposed to be the basis of the disease, two types of tics are often distinguished:

Primary – These are spontaneous tics. Moreover, they often appear in healthy children (in 10% of cases) and go away on their own within a few weeks. You can often hear that their main cause was psycho-emotional trauma. Although the psychosomatic nature of tics in children is widely discussed, there is no evidence that any stressful events in life can lead to them.

Tourette’s syndrome is also included in the first tics.

Secondary – when the symptoms occur in the background of another disease or as a symptom of a hereditary disease:
• Huntington’s disease
• neuroacanthocytosis
• neurodegeneration with iron accumulation in the brain
• tuberous sclerosis
• Wilson’s disease

A common cause of nervous tics of the eyes and other parts of the body in secondary tics is the childhood autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with group A streptococci (PANDAS syndrome). Therefore, it is important to remember if the child had a sore throat before the tics appeared.

Pathogenesis

Currently, the most plausible is the neurobiological theory of the occurrence of tics. It is believed that the disease is caused by a malfunction of neurotransmitters – substances responsible for the transmission of signals in the brain. In particular, scientists call failures in the work of such neurotransmitters as dopamine, serotonin, GABA, glutamate, norepinephrine, endorphins. An important role belongs to disturbances in the work of the subcortical nerve centers, the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex, and the right frontotemporal region.

Classification

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, DSM-5, identifies five types of tics:

1. Temporary (transient) tic disorder – when symptoms persist for less than one year.

2. Persistent motor or vocal tic disorder (chronic tic) – when the manifestations persist for more than one year (during this time there may be intervals when there are no tics).

3. Tourette’s syndrome – when, as we noted above, both motor and vocal tics persist for more than a year. This and the previous two diagnoses on the list are made only when symptoms begin before the age of 18 and are not caused by another disorder (such as Huntington’s disease), substance use, or drug side effects.

4. Other specified tic disorders – when the clinical picture does not correspond to any of the previous items in the list. At the same time, the doctor can accurately indicate by which criterion there is a discrepancy – for example, the disease first manifested itself after 18 years.

5. Unspecified tic disorders – when the clinical picture does not correspond to the previous points, but the doctor cannot specify how this discrepancy manifests itself. For example, if there is not enough information to establish a more accurate diagnosis.

Depending on the manifestations, there are two types of tics:

• Simple – when there are sudden and short contractions in one muscle group, such as shrugging or blinking in children. With simple vocal tics, the child makes meaningless sounds, for example, snorts, grunts.
• Complex – when movements look more purposeful and different muscle groups work in a coordinated manner during them. With complex vocal tics, the speed, volume, and rhythm of speech may change.

Also, depending on what symptoms tics manifest, they can be:

• Motor – in the form of involuntary movements.
• Vocal – in the form of uncontrolled sounds.
• Sensory – in the form of unpleasant sensations (for example, burning in the eyes), which make the patient make certain movements.

Symptoms

Among the motor (motor) tics, shrugging the shoulders, blinking the eyes, biting the lips, and various grimaces are common. Vocal tics often manifest as coughing (as if the child is trying to “clear his throat”), snorting, grunting, mooing, screeching, or saying certain words. Manifestations can be very diverse, and often they cause great anxiety in parents. In such situations, you should not engage in self-diagnosis. It is necessary to consult a doctor who will establish an accurate diagnosis and tell you how to treat it.

Complex tics often initially begin as simple tics, in the form of eye blinking. But over time, twitching of the mouth, rolling and closing the eyes, tilting and turning the head, shrugging the shoulders can join. Complex vocal tics can manifest themselves in the form of pronouncing whole words and phrases:

• coprolalia – when the child periodically yells out curses
• echolalia – when a child repeats a certain word without interruption, its fragments

There are different types of movement disorders, and only a specialist can distinguish between them. For example, it is often necessary to make a differential diagnosis between tics and pathologies such as:

• convulsive disorders
• obsessive-compulsive disorders when the child makes obsessive movements
• other neurological diseases

A characteristic feature of tics is that a person can stop them by an effort of will, but he will experience discomfort, a strong desire to blink his eyes, shrug his shoulders, etc. With some training, a child’s nervous tic can often be quite controlled – in fact, this goal is pursued treatment. But it is important to understand that a simple request to “control yourself” will not bring the desired result, but will only increase the child’s anxiety.

Tics increase during times of stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, excitement. And during some interesting activity in which the child is immersed with his head, they, on the contrary, often disappear.

How to help a child?

First of all, parents should not focus on the involuntary movements that the child makes. This can only provoke an even stronger tic. Often, adults are more concerned about symptoms than they are for the child. Some children are not at all aware of the involuntary movements that they make until they are told about it by others. And worst of all, when such remarks appear in the form of ridicule, reproaches, accusations. After all, this is a stress factor, and it contributes to the strengthening of tics.

Here it is appropriate to recall the instructions that are placed near oxygen masks in airplanes: “first put on yourself, then on the child.” So it is with tics: the best thing a parent can do to help a child is to cope with their own anxiety, be calm and not focus on the tic itself.

When to see a doctor?

Motor tics in children are not dangerous and do not cause damage to the nervous system. If they are mild, then a doctor should be visited in any case: this will help make sure that the symptoms are not caused by a more serious illness. Mild manifestations often do not require treatment, and the disorder disappears on its own with age.

In some cases, it is necessary to consult a doctor :

• if tics occur regularly, become more frequent and/or severe over time
• if the manifestations cause psycho-emotional or social problems: for example, lead to severe embarrassment, social isolation, become a reason for bullying by classmates
• if the tics cause pain or discomfort if the child accidentally injures himself during them
• if the tics interfere with daily life, schooling
• if they are accompanied by increased irritability, depression, auto-aggression (harming oneself), other mental disorders

An experienced medical specialist can often make a diagnosis from the words of the parents, even if he did not personally observe the child’s tic.

But it is useful to record the symptoms on video on a smartphone before visiting the clinic. This will help the doctor make an accurate diagnosis faster.

Possible complications

Some patients experience severe exacerbations, which are called tic status. At the same time, movements are repeated with a frequency of more than 50 in 20 minutes, and sometimes their number during this period of time can reach 1000. They cause severe torment to the child, lead to pain.

Chronic tics in childhood can lead to many problems:

• they interfere with the child’s daily activities, studying at school
• some movements, when they are often repeated, become exhausting, cause pain
• concentration of attention decreases, coordination of movements worsens, development of motor skills
• school performance suffers: the child is more difficult to learn to write, he perceives and remembers new material worse
• regular tics become a reason for ridicule, bullying from classmates
• the child often experiences embarrassment, which can later lead to social isolation, anxiety disorders, depression and other problems
• has a particularly strong effect on self-esteem and social adaptation of tics in adolescents

Diagnostic methods

There are no special studies for the diagnosis of nervous tics. The doctor may prescribe electroencephalography, magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, but all this is needed only for differential diagnosis in order to detect or exclude more serious diseases. They will not reveal any changes in the nervous system that caused the tics.

The diagnosis is established on the basis of an examination of the child and a conversation with his parents. It is important for the doctor to find out when and under what circumstances the first symptoms appeared, how they changed over time, what movements the child makes, how often they occur. Such children are sent for examination to a neurologist, a psychiatrist, and a consultation with a psychologist. Each of these specialists conducts differential diagnostics with other diseases from their area of ​​expertise.

To distinguish transient tics from chronic ones and Tourette’s syndrome, the doctor must observe the child for a long time. It is important to understand, as we mentioned above, whether the symptoms persisted for more than a year or disappeared earlier.

Methods of treatment

Regardless of what kind of disease we are talking about, usually the desire of parents who are at the doctor’s appointment is to be given a “magic pill from which everything will pass”, and even better, that the doctor prescribes several drugs at once, preferably the most “modern” and “effective”. But there is no special “ticking pill”. Most often, it is not required. The disorder can be overcome in other ways. They require the child to work on himself with specialists, and such work can take several months. The most effective methods of psychotherapy:

• Habit Management Therapy helps the child learn intentional purposeful movements that “compete” with tics, and the latter cannot occur at the same time.
• Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT) is a set of skills that help reduce the symptoms of a tic disorder.
• Response Prevention Reaction (ERP) – techniques that help to get used to the discomfort that occurs immediately before tics in order to prevent them.

Some patients benefit from the blood pressure lowering drug clonidine. In some cases, doctors prescribe antipsychotics. But these drugs have side effects, and they are prescribed strictly according to indications, taking into account the severity of the disorder. The doctor selects the minimum dose of medication that helps keep the tics under control.

If the child has concomitant neuropsychiatric diseases, they also need to be treated. For example, some children with tics and Tourette’s syndrome have obsessive-compulsive disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Forecast

In most cases, the prognosis is favorable. In some children, tics last only a few months, in some longer, but over time they completely disappear or decrease significantly. With severe manifestations, the above methods of psychotherapy usually help to keep the symptoms under control.

Prophylaxis

There are no specific methods for preventing tics in children. The child must observe the daily routine, fully eat and sleep. It is necessary to limit the time he spends at the computer, try to minimize stress. Also, parents should not overload the child with numerous circles and sections outside of school, if this leads to overwork. In a word, elementary observance of the rules of a healthy lifestyle helps in the prevention of tics and many other health problems.

Helpful hints

In summary, here are some helpful tips for parents:

• Don’t focus your child’s attention on tics. The best way to deal with them is to ignore them
• Don’t panic if your child has symptoms for the first time. But you still need to see a doctor
• Before going to the doctor, record a video of tics on your phone
• Do not discuss the child’s condition in front of the child
• Try to protect the child from severe stress, let him do what interests him, focus on his strong, positive qualities

Main

• Nervous tics in children – a condition in which there is a sudden, repetitive and non-rhythmic contraction of one (simple tics) or several (complex tics) muscle groups.
• Nervous tics are motor (in the form of movements) and vocal (when a child utters certain sounds, snorts, sniffs loudly, etc.).
• If motor and vocal tics persist simultaneously for more than a year, Tourette’s syndrome is diagnosed.
• The causes of this condition are not fully understood, the role of genetics and environmental factors is assumed.
• If your child has tics, you should see a doctor to rule out other more serious conditions.
• Tics usually disappear on their own with age without treatment. Until adulthood, they persist only in 1% of cases.
• Various methods of psychotherapy help to gain control over tics. Medicines are rarely needed, only in some cases.
• In most cases, the prognosis is favorable.

Sources:

1. Zykov V.P. Tics and Tourette syndrome in children // Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry. S.S. Korsakov (5), 2020, p. 116-124.
2. Demeuova A. K., Akhmetova Z.K. Tics in children. The main directions of treatment // Science of life and health, 2010
3. Zykov V.P., Kashirina E.A., Naugolnykh Yu.V. Treatment and diagnostic approaches for local and widespread tics in children // Difficult patient, 2015
4. Chutko L.S., Surushkina S.Yu., Yakovenko E.A., Nikishena I.S. Anisimova T.I., Livinskaya A.M., Aitbekov K.A. Experience in the use of adaptol in the treatment of tic hyperkinesis in children // Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry. S.S. Korsakova, 2009
5. Badalyan O.L., Burd S.G., Savenkov A.A. and others. Possibilities of using pantogam in the practice of a neurologist // Farmateka, 2006

The covid pandemic has increased the frequency of tics in children

A study of almost four million British children aged 4 to 18 found that the incidence of tics increased significantly during the covid pandemic. As reported in eClinicalMedicine , adolescent girls between 12 and 18 years of age were the hardest hit, with an almost five-fold increase in incidence among them.

Tics, or involuntary short-term stereotyped movements, and tic disorders (including Tourette’s syndrome) are more common in boys. However, doctors around the world have noticed that with the onset of the covid pandemic, there has been a marked increase in the number of new cases of severe tics and tic-like hyperkinesis among teenage girls. This phenomenon was widely reported in the media, which blamed social networks for the development of deviations. However, there have been few large cohort studies on this subject. Only the United States recorded an increase in the incidence at the national level.

So Chris Hollis from the University of Nottingham calculated how much the prevalence of tics has increased among children in the UK. To do this, he and his research group studied the dynamics of the incidence of tics and tic disorders in children from 4 to 18 years old from January 2015 to December 2021. The study included data from 3867709 children (14734062 person-years).

11245 children were diagnosed with tics for the first time during the study period: 7113 in 2015-2019years, 1861 in 2020 and 2271 in 2021. Boys accounted for 65.7 percent, and the median age at first tic registration was nine years old. However, the proportion of girls aged 12 to 18 increased from 7.5 percent of the total in 2015-2019 to 26.3 percent in 2020 and 27.7 percent in 2021. In addition, the proportion of children with tics increased, who also experienced anxiety, depression, cases of self-harm and eating disorders. Overall, in the study population, the relative frequency of anxiety increased from 5.7 percent in 2015-2019years to 12.1 percent in 2020 and 13.0 percent in 2021.

Scientists also found that at the beginning of the pandemic, the incidence of tics decreased (probably due to restrictive measures, sick children could not get to the doctor in time), but then the incidence increased in all age and sex groups. On average, boys from 4 to 11 years old were most often ill. However, the largest increase was observed among girls aged 12 to 18 years, from two cases per ten thousand person-years in May 2020 to 4.5 per ten thousand person-years in June 2020, and then to 11.5 per thousand person-years in July 2020. Between September and December 2020, the incidence increased to about 20 cases per ten thousand person-years. The peak incidence in this group occurred in March 2021 and reached 24.7 cases per ten thousand people. The average annual incidence in this group was 2.5 per ten thousand person-years in 2015-2019years, 10.3 per ten thousand person-years in 2020 and 13.1 per ten thousand person-years in 2021.

In all groups, the difference between the incidence of tics before and during the pandemic was statistically significant. This study of British children confirms the overall observed upward trend in the incidence of tic disorders among adolescent girls and shows that, overall, the number of such disorders has increased during the pandemic. In the future, scientists will have to study the direct mechanisms that led to an increase in the incidence of tics.