Merry Christmas, watch out for blood-sucking ticks on the tree!
Published: 22 Dec 09 09:44 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20091222-24105.html
Families who bring Christmas trees into their homes should watch out for ticks this holiday season because the tiny blood-sucking, disease-ridden creatures often survive winter temperatures, German daily Bild reported on Monday.
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“While setting up and decorating the tree a tick can get on clothing,” insurance expert Rolf Dockhorn told Bild, adding that this can be particularly dangerous because people are not expecting the little invaders and may not notice them right away.
Ticks carry Lyme disease, or borreliosis, a dangerous bacterial disease, as well as encephalitis, a virus that attacks the nervous system.
Those who venture out for winter walks should also be on their guard for ticks, the paper said. In warmer years they are able to survive and hide in shrubbery from where they can easily attach themselves to passersby.
The Local (news@thelocal.de)
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Your comments about this article:
That unreal, that someone would take offense to valuable info.
Merry "tickmas" to you too! (believe it or not, people survived these lethal tick-infested xmas trees for like hundreds of years!! ;-) )
Ticks carrying Lyme disease, TBE, and other diseases can come into your home on Christmas trees, so being alerted to it was a fabulous Christmas gift from the newspaper and author of the article.
If you are going to throw around big words please spell them correctly... ectoparasites.... no such thing as an extoparasite. All it means is they live outside on their host as opposed to living inside the body.
Ticks actually spend a great deal of time off hosts altogether, on and under plantlife.
Your other big word is incorrect as well, hematophagous simply means they feed on blood but that does not imply anything about finding them on trees.
With Lyme disease being a very real and serious disease, and with it becoming the most wide-spread rapidly emerging infectious zoonotic disease in the world ( I believe Germany has already had over 70,000 cases in 2009 alone) it is rather naive to consider the article fear-mongering unless of course you live somewhere off this planet. The US government estimates they have in excess of 200,000 cases per year. For good info on this disease including prevention tips go to www.CanLyme.com
...as opposed to what? voluntarily offering your hand to the blood-sucking fiend??!!
Look people, ticks are not new! There has not been an ornamental/tree-decorating related tick-bite problem in the past and there won't be one in the foreseeable future!!