They’re NOT Chigger Bites, They’re Tick Bites
These are NOT chigger bites! No matter what you’ve heard, we promise they are TICKS!
Summer may be over but tick season is not. Please read on to stay informed about Long Island tick troubles that sneak up in fall:
Lone Star tick larvae can be dangerously difficult to detect. If you or someone you know recently became covered in bites, especially along their legs, it is very likely that they accidentally touched or sat near a Lone Star tick nest. These are not chigger bites.
“Tick Nest” - female tick laying eggs
Adult female Lone Star ticks lay 2,000-3,000 eggs each before they die. These begin to hatch late summer into fall. This means that right now on Long Island, tick nests are bursting with thousands of larvae, six-legged “seed ticks”, hungry for their first bloodmeal.
Brief contact with a tick nest can leave you covered in bites. These irritated red bumps are often misdiagnosed as chigger bites.
Chiggers on Long Island? Doubtful.
Scott Campbell, Ph.d., the chief of the Arthropod-Borne Disease Lab of the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, states that there has never been a chigger found anywhere on Long Island. Campbell has shared that chiggers are actually found in warmer climates in the south and west.
“There are some people that are convinced that they’re chiggers,” he said. “I’ve been here since 1991, and I’ve never come across chiggers. … I’ve looked at thousands of samples throughout the years of people bringing me what they thought were chiggers. All of them have been larval lone star tick bites.”
Although larvae can not pass on Lyme or other diseases that adult ticks do, they can cause Alpha Gal syndrome- the “red meat allergy” you’ve heard about. Yes this is real and it causes anaphylaxis in affected humans who consume mammalian-based products.
Please be careful outdoors and contact us to organically treat for ticks at your home or business.