New invasive tick found in parts of Tennessee

KNOXVILLE — There’s a new kind of creepy-crawly to look out for in East Tennessee this summer. The invasive Asian longhorned tick, which can reproduce without mating, has been found on animals in Union, Roane and Knox counties.

The parasite was first discovered about two years ago on sheep in New Jersey.

“We kind of found the tick accidentally, and that’s led a lot of people to question what ticks are here and if there are others missing from what we know of ticks in the country,” said Dr. Rebecca Trout-Fryxell, a medical and veterinary entomologist at the University of Tennessee Institute of Entomology and Plant Pathology.

Trout-Fryxell is part of a team of multiple agencies studying the tick: University of Tennessee Department of Agriculture, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the state Health Department, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We got together and said well, we’re just going to check all the ticks we can,” she said. “What we’re really trying to do is get a general assessment of what ticks are present in Tennessee.”

There are no reports of the tick farther south than Tennessee. It also has popped up in Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Outside the United States, the ticks have been shown to carry multiple infections and viruses, but to date, no infectious agents have been identified in the Asian longhorned ticks found in the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control has started colonies of the ticks to test whether or not they are able to carry and transmit pathogens found in the United States, like Lyme Disease or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

So far, only two people have been bitten in the United States, and Trout-Fryxell said she has found the ticks crawling across her body while collecting them in the field, but has never been bitten.

Dogs, cattle, whitetailed deer and small ruminants like sheep and goats may be at risk of being bitten though.

Scientists don’t yet know how the invasive tick will survive in Western hemisphere habitats or how the tick moves to new areas.