{"id":5597,"date":"2018-02-27T16:30:52","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T00:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=5597"},"modified":"2018-03-23T15:37:42","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T22:37:42","slug":"february-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=5597","title":{"rendered":"February 27"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>2018 February 27<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Our contributors are making sure that Invert Alert remains in business during the winter.\u00a0 Today, thanks to Jochen Moehr who sends us a couple of interesting pictures of a tick taken from his dog in Metchosin.\u00a0 And thanks to Janet Sperling of the University of Alberta, who writes:\u00a0 \u201cThe tick from Vancouver Island is an <strong><em>Ixodes<\/em><\/strong> but I\u2019d need to see the specimen to know which species. The shape of the scutum suggests <strong><em>I.<\/em><\/strong><strong><em> pacificus<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 At this time of year, the most common species from Vancouver Island would be <em>Ixodes pacificus<\/em> but I\u2019d need to see the mouthparts to be sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Jeremy Tatum remarks:\u00a0\u00a0 To my untutored eye this didn\u2019t look much like the <em> Ixodes pacificus <\/em>shown by Thomas Barbin on June 22, so I asked Dr Sperling about the two ticks.\u00a0 She replied:\u00a0 Both ticks appear to be <em>Ixodes pacificus<\/em>. The black scutum with red \u2018abdomen&#8217; = &#8216;idiosoma\u2019 is the unfed form of the tick. When the tick feeds, it will feed over several days. There are many hormonal changes so the idiosoma can stretch as the tick feeds. The colour of the cuticle changes. It makes sense that the black and red photo was found crawling around (looking for a meal) while the other tick had been feeding on a dog.\u00a0 Another interesting thing about hard ticks is that they don\u2019t excrete the fluid portion of the blood out the back end. They re-inject the fluid part of the blood into the host which is why they\u2019re so effective at transmitting diseases.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" style=\"margin: 5px;\" src=\"file:\/\/\/F:\/DOCUME%7E1\/tatum\/LOCALS%7E1\/Temp\/msohtml1\/01\/clip_image002.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"tick dor.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/tick-dor.jpg\" width=\"596\" height=\"438.5566666666667\" name=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Tick (upperside) <em>Ixodes <\/em>(probably <em>pacificus<\/em>) (Acari: Ixodidae) Jochen Moehr<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" style=\"margin: 5px;\" src=\"file:\/\/\/F:\/DOCUME%7E1\/tatum\/LOCALS%7E1\/Temp\/msohtml1\/01\/clip_image004.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"tick ven.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/tick-ven.jpg\" width=\"596\" height=\"468.3566666666666\" name=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Tick (underside) <em>Ixodes <\/em>(probably <em>pacificus<\/em>) (Acari: Ixodidae) Jochen Moehr<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2018 February 27 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Our contributors are making sure that Invert Alert remains in business during the winter.\u00a0 Today, thanks to Jochen Moehr who sends us a couple of interesting pictures of a tick taken from his dog in Metchosin.\u00a0 And thanks to Janet Sperling of the University of Alberta, who writes:\u00a0 \u201cThe tick [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-invertebrate-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5597"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5667,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5597\/revisions\/5667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}