Dear Otus,
I thought Arkansas had a handle on its tick menace when they eradicated the giant Mexican crab tick about 10 years ago. But I was driving the family to Petit Jean State Park last weekend when I heard a radio story about the coming "tick explosion." It ruined our hike.
Is this more fake news and scare tactics? I don't want to see exploding ticks, nor do I want to worry about turning green from lime disease.
-- John Josselyn,
Conway
Dear John,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and to reassure you that there will be no exploding ticks in the near future. I heard that same CBS News report and can state with unequivocal confidence and certitude that the reporter was indulging in colorful metaphoric hyperbole in order to grab your attention.
I guess it worked.
It is the same as when a sports announcer screams after a touchdown, "And the crowd went wild! The crowd exploded!" I can imagine the crowd going wild -- jumping up and down, screaming, and so forth -- but exploding is beyond reason.
The only thing worse is when an overly enthusiastic announcer attempts to emphasize the crowd reaction and says, "Wow! He ran it back all ... the ... way and the crowd literally exploded." Naturally, he meant "figuratively" exploded, but adding literally to a metaphor only compounds the error.
The crowd did no such thing. The crowd cheered loudly and with great elan. If, however, a crowd did happen to explode, the mess would be inconceivable. Indeed, imagine a covered venue such as AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, with a standing room capacity of 105,121. If there were a "literal" crowd explosion, it would take months to clean up.
To repeat: There will be no tiny explosions lining the hiking trails this summer. What Thomas Mather of the University of Rhode Island said in the radio report about ticks was that, "They're up and looking for a host hoping something will walk by that they can latch on."
That would most likely be a woodland creature such as a deer. However, if you happen to stroll by, well, you'll do just fine.
Mather is internationally known as "the tick guy" in acarology circles. His website, TickEncounter.org, is calling for high tick activity this year in the Eastern United States and increased populations elsewhere, including Arkansas.
"It's very important," Mather said, "because around here it's the worst for Lyme disease more than anywhere else in the nation."
Note that the malady is called Lyme disease, and not lime disease.
Turning green? Hypochromic anemia, also known as chlorosis or green sickness, turns patients green. Lyme disease, named after a town in Connecticut after a 1975 outbreak, is far more serious due to infection by the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto species of bacteria.
Lyme disease, generally spread by deer ticks, can lay you out. It begins as an expanding bull's-eye rash at the site of the bite and can give you flu-like symptoms, loss of facial movement, joint pains, severe headaches, neck stiffness, heart palpitations, progeria, trimethylaminuria, urticaria and aphasia.
So, it's wise to take the usual precautions when in the tick woods. You've seen these precautions before.
The annual tick and mosquito warnings are part of the media's raft of stock features they pull out at regular times of the year. These include such reminders as keeping your taps dripping when it's below freezing, being aware of heat stroke in the summer, and what to do when a tornado approaches.
Since the giant Mexican crab scourge of 2008 was deftly handled, it falls upon citizens to familiarize themselves with the smaller species in order to alert authorities about encounters.
On Mather's website, visitors can learn to identify a tick by its scutum, capitulum and festoons. There's a handy interactive map that has the latest from his local TickSpotters to warn about the tick encounter index. As this column was written, the index was "high" for lone star ticks in Arkansas.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that a tick will never make a good superhero.
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of humorous fabrication
appears every Saturday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Disclaimer: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of 👉 humorous fabrication 👈 appears every Saturday.
HomeStyle on 05/12/2018