Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Tick

Description:

Small tick exhibiting the classic questing pose: he stood at the tip of the leaf and slowly waved his two front legs. I'm thinking male Ixodes ricinus, the castor bean tick, but I'm really not sure.

Habitat:

Botanical Garden

Notes:

This was a lucky find! I was taking photos in the local Botanical Garden when I saw what I thought was a large dark-coloured tick crawling on my hand. Without taking a closer look, I immediately shook it off. Then I second-guessed myself and wondered if I'd overreacted - if perhaps it had just been a beetle. Scanning the ground, I didn't find any sign of it, so I thought to myself "if that really was a tick, I bet there are more" and knelt down to study the undergrowth at the side of the path. Sure enough, right when I was about to give up, this little guy crawled out from behind a leaf and went into questing pose! The whole experience was an important reminder of just how ubiquitous ticks are in cities, even in gardens and public parks.

1 Species ID Suggestions

Castor Bean Tick
Ixodes ricinus Ixodes ricinus


Sign in to suggest organism ID

1 Comment

Christine Y.
Christine Y. 7 years ago

You are correct - looks like a Castor Bean Tick. Beautiful picture, love the questing pose!

Hannah Davis
Spotted by
Hannah Davis

Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Spotted on Jun 16, 2016
Submitted on Jun 18, 2016

Related Spottings

Tick __ Tick American Dog Tick (female) Tick

Nearby Spottings

Cluster fly Western Conifer Seed Bug Running crab spider Spider egg sac

Tags

Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team