Like its name suggests, the brown dog tick dines on dog blood. But as temperatures rise, they're more likely to feast on you, too. That's a problem, because the brown dog tick is a vector for Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a disease that's deadly to both dogs and humans.

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Brown dog ticks are the most widespread ticks in the world, and the most adapted to living among us. Scientists believe they evolved alongside burrowing carnivores like foxes and weasels, and came indoors when we domesticated dogs. That's a problem, because they can transmit bacteria that cause Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a terrible disease that can kill both dogs and humans. Rocky Mountain spotted fever usually occurs in small clusters in the United States and is relatively rare. However, outbreaks in northern Mexico have killed hundreds of people. And rising temperatures due to climate change are sparking some troubling tick behavior. When it’s particularly hot out, brown dog ticks start craving human blood!

---+ Dogs, Wildlife & Tick borne diseases
Assistant professor of animal science at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (   / @calpoly  ) Laura Backus, whose research on the brown dog tick we explored in this episode, has spent a lot of time exploring tick populations in California and Mexico during her Ph.D. and postdoc at the University of California, Davis, (   / @ucdavis  . Check out her team's work exploring the role of wildlife in tick-borne diseases in these papers:
https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjad085 and https://doi.org/10.7589/jwd-d-22-00179

---+ Learn More About the Brown Dog Tick!
Veterinary specialist in parasitology Filipe Dantas-Torres, who worked with us on this episode, is an expert in the brown dog tick. And he’s got a lot more to say about these parasitic arachnids! Check out his work in this paper: https://www.cell.com/trends/parasitol...

---+ Insecticide Resistant Mosquitos?
Professor of entomology Geoffrey Attardo, of the University of California, Davis, who helped us with this episode specializes in the biology of vector-borne diseases. He’s been investigating the physiological responses to insecticide exposure in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, and the resistance mechanisms they have evolved to deal with environmental toxins. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159...

---+ Learn how we got those awesome images of the Haller’s Organ here!
Microscopist T Josek took the incredible pictures of the brown dog tick’s Haller’s organ you saw in this episode. Josek is part of Bugscope at the University of Illinois' Beckman Institute: https://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/

---+ Find additional resources and a transcript on KQED Science:

https://www.kqed.org/science/1985541/...

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