Seed Tick Bites

What Are Seed Ticks?

The life cycle of hard ticks includes an egg, larval, nymph and adult stages.

The larval stage is the smallest of the tick stages, has 6 legs and are known as seed ticks since they are about the size of a seed.

As an example, the blacklegged tick, which is the transmitter of Lyme disease in the eastern portion of our country, is about the size of a poppy seed.

Do Seed Ticks Bite?

In general, seed tick bites on humans don't occur as often as they do with nymph and adult stage ticks.

When a larval tick bites, a major problem is the difficulty in knowing a seed tick has bitten. This is because they are small, embed into the skin, and are hard to see.

Often times, unless a person is carefully and frequently looking for seed ticks on their body, they won’t see them until the seed tick has embedded into the skin and a rash or similar indicator of skin irritation occurs.

Problems With Seed Tick Bites

Since seed tick bites are so small, removing them is not easily done without leaving parts of the seed tick’s body in the person’s skin.

Leaving behind parts of the tick often leads to more itching, swelling, the possibility of secondary bacterial infections, and transmission of tick borne diseases.