I've been thinking of photographing lurking (a.k.a. "questing") ticks for a while now, and today I finally got around to it. As far as I can tell, they love dead Lotus. I think these four are all Pacific Coast Ticks (Dermacentor occidentalis), three females and a male (without the pale shield). While the Western Black Legged Tick (Ixodes pacificus) is the main vector here of the Lyme Disease spirochete (Borrelia burgdorferi), 3 percent of Pacific Coast Ticks at Camp Pendelton (San Diego County) tested positive for spirochete! This is the most abundant and common tick in the Monterey Bay area in my experience. These photos were taken between the CSUMB campus and Marina on the blocked off part of 6th Avenue between the 8th street cutoff and Imjin Road. In 2004 I shared blood with a tick for the better part of a day... see http://www.flickr.com/photos/kibak/143810783/
http://maps.google.com/?ll=36.658436,-121.792417&spn=0.016766,0.028925&om=1
http://www.americanarachnology.org/HiResGallery/Acari_m_Dermacentor_occidentalis.html
http://members.utech.net/users/10766/003.txt
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