Pests of Winter

 

I just had my first Christmas Day tick.  Just a little itching on the underside of my forearm led me to the surprise.  I have to give it points for tenacity, engorging on a 34 degree day but it didn't survive the tweezers.  Identification of an engorged tick is difficult but I can rule out a Lone Star tick.  This is most likely a Dog Tick.  

Deer ticks that can transmit Lyme Disease will occasionally come out of dormancy to bit on moderate winter days.  I have never seen a Black Leg Tick/Deer Tick (Ixodes scapularis) in 20 years and we are at the western edge of their territory according to the CDC.  Infectious disease doctors locally tell me that the uncommon Lyme Disease cases they see are generally acquired from the eastern US.

We tend to talk about late spring as tick season here in the Ozarks but apparently this one hadn't checked the calendar.   

"In general, the species of ticks that transmit diseases to humans in the U.S. tend to become inactive during the winter. The combination of cold weather and shorter days triggers a kind of hibernation, known as diapause, says Ellen Stromdahl, a retired entomologist from the tick-borne disease laboratory of the U.S. Army Public Health Center at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland."  Consumer Reports

Winter Mosquito - December 12, 2020

Note:  See next post, I now think this is a non-biting midge.

 Two weeks earlier I saw an insect fly slowly and land on the kitchen counter.  It sat there patiently while I got my camera to document it as a visiting mosquito in mid- December.  I can't identify it to species.

According to multiple sources in cold weather—below 50° F, according to the Connecticut Mosquito Management Program—mosquitoes aren’t active.  "Winter" is a relative term and the first first 12 days of December had 4 nights barely below freezing after a low of zero on December 1 according to the National Weather Service.  Either way this is one tough mosquito.

Lots of other "bugs" show up in our creek house in addition to the ones we bring in for study.  Spiders, beetles, flies and crickets are common.  While most normal people bring out the insecticide, we tend to collect and identify them.  We are not alone in this.  Researchers at North Carolina State University have conducted a study of  Arthropods in our Homes.

As discussed in Zmescience, they studied 50 homes within a 30 mile radius.  

"In total, they searched over 500 rooms, and just 6 of them were insect-free. To be honest, they probably also missed some insects because they never checked underneath carpets and in drawers or cabinets."

“The vast majority of the arthropods we found in homes were not pest species,” Bertone says. “They were either peaceful cohabitants – like the cobweb spiders (Theridiidae) found in 65 percent of all rooms sampled – or accidental visitors, like midges and leafhoppers (Cicadellidae).”

Click to enlarge - Zmescience

I think you will find this detailed summary of their finds as interesting as I did, or else you will be putting in a call to your local exterminator.