What Do Ticks Look Like?
If you have never had the displeasure of finding a tick on your skin or on the skin of your dog or cat, you may wonder what these pests look like. While most people know ticks are biting pests that spread Lyme disease, some people still don't know what a tick looks like. Here are some quick tips for tick identification.
- Ticks are arachnids. They have eight legs, rather than six, like an insect.
- Ticks are reddish-brown when they have not yet taken a blood meal.
- As a tick draws a blood meal, it grows in size and exposes a pale blue or tan coloration.
- Ticks only have two body parts — the cephalothorax and the abdomen. It is the abdomen that grows in size.
- Baby ticks do not have eight legs yet. They only have six. If you find a six-legged tick on your skin, it will likely look like nothing more than a speck.
- At full size, ticks are still small, measuring about ⅛ of an inch in length.
When you find a tick, capture it and send it to us to identify the species. The tick species associated with Lyme disease is the black-legged tick, also called the deer tick.
What You Can Expect From Ticks In Plymouth

Ticks are a disease concern. Lyme disease is far from the only disease ticks can spread. Tick-borne diseases impact both pets and humans. When ticks come into your yard, it is helpful to know what to expect.
A tick will gravitate to moisture. In a moist habitat, it can grow, lay eggs, and produce viable young. You'll likely find ticks in your landscaping and the tall grass on your property.
Ticks can climb onto you and hitch a ride on your clothing. They can attach to dogs to enter your home and also hitch rides on rats and mice.
Most ticks cannot complete their entire life cycle indoors; only brown dog ticks can do this in our area. But that doesn't mean other ticks aren't a threat. They can attach and transmit diseases for the short time they survive inside.
The best solution for ticks is a mixture of personal tick prevention, protective products for your pets, and routine tick reduction in your yard. We can help you with that last one. Combat Pest Control offers Tick Home & Yard Control service to control and manage ticks in Plymouth. We use the most advanced products and methods to get rid of ticks in your yard.
How Does Tick Control And Prevention Work?
Often, what Plymouth residents do to prevent tick problems is purchase control products for their dogs and cats. When ticks appear, they remove them, treat their pets, and treat their homes, but waiting until ticks are a problem isn't a great way to deal with them. Lyme disease, Rocky Mountian spotted fever, ehrlichiosis, and other tick-borne diseases are potentially hazardous. At Combat Pest Control, we believe in proactive tick control and provide comprehensive services to help you deal with ticks from start to finish.
Prevention: Do you have a tick infestation in your home? We can treat your house and arrest the infestation. We'll also track the problem and help you figure out how the ticks got into your home in the first place.
Control: Do you have a tick problem in your yard and routinely find ticks on your pets? The applications we apply around your property work to remove ticks and make your exterior pet-friendly.
Maintenance: Once the ticks are gone, we help you keep those ticks from coming back. Routine tick treatments keep ticks at bay. We also offer expert advice if there are conducive conditions making you more susceptible to a tick infestation.
Are you in the Plymouth, Massachusetts, area? If so, jump to our contact page and drop us a line, or give us a call. You don't have to live with ticks. The best way to deal with ticks is to keep them out of your yard. You don't have to wait until you find them on your furry family members. Connect with us today to get started with annual, proactive tick control and tick bite prevention.
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