09/05/2025
When & How to Report a Suspicious Tick
Taryn Pearson, BVMS Assistant State Veterinarian
Are ticks ticking you off? Invading your news feed? Crawling about on your patients? Are your clients bringing you ticks or things that look like ticks to identify that are stuck to little pieces of tape, mashed beyond all recognition, or floating around in impossibly large envelopes or plastic bags? Are people showing you parts of their bodies unexpectedly that have been bitten by ticks and other insects? Yeah, us too. Luckily, veterinarians don’t have to be entomologists to help clients with ticks and other buggy creatures!
Illustrations of Ticks and a magnifying glass
The University of Maine has a Tick Lab, and the State Veterinarian’s Office has a reportable disease form that can help navigate tick issues. Luckily, to date, in Maine, detections of reportable disease ticks such as the Asian Longhorn Tick have been rare—rare, as in one in all of known history. The recent detection was a tick nymph! No other individuals have been found after repeated surveillance, and at this point, it is suspected that the little nymph fell off his chosen bird air transport and landed in a Maine backyard. This detection is interesting to the Maine State Veterinarian’s office, but it does not have the State Veterinarian’s Office in panic mode. Show us these ticks crawling around on livestock, and there will be lots of communications from the State Veterinarian’s Office surrounding next steps.
For now, if you see a tick that makes you question its identification and it is crawling around on livestock, please fill out the reportable disease form on the Animal Health Program website: Disease Information: Animal Health: Division of Animal and Plant Health: Maine DACF. Pictures of curious-looking livestock ticks can be sent to our office via email to [email protected] for prescreening for NVSL submission by trained entomologists.
What makes a good tick pic? Great question. A clean white background, such as a piece of paper, makes a good tick photo booth. Good lighting is essential to show the true colors of the tick and prevent blurry photos. Using the Macro setting, if you are using a smartphone camera, is also helpful in achieving clear photos. Place the tick dorsal side up on the paper, zoom in so all the mouth parts (mouth parts are the most important for quick ID), legs, and body markings are clearly visible, and the tick should take up most of the picture space and office, we will work with the submitter to get the tick NVSL for confirmatory testing.
If you see a tick that makes you ticked off because it crawled on you, your client, or on a pet patient, throw that offending eight-legged nuisance in a zip-lock sandwich bag with the date, your name, and telephone number on it, and visit the University of Maine Tick Lab’s website for submission instructions. Tick Submission Instructions - Cooperative Extension: Tick Lab - University of Maine Cooperative Extension ID of the tick is FREE! Pathogen testing of the tick is also available at this lab, which many people have found helpful in navigating tick bite aftercare.
The University of Maine Cooperative Extension Diagnostic and Research Laboratory brings together scientists researching animals, agriculture, insects, and plants under one roof. The unique combination of researchers provides many teaching opportunities for students, as well as premier research and o...
