Hungry ticks have some slick tricks. A new study says they can zoom through the air using static electricity to latch onto you and your pets.
NEW YORK — Hungry ticks have some slick tricks. They can zoom through the air using static electricity to latch onto people, pets and other animals, new research shows.
They can’t jump or fly onto their hosts, he said. Instead, they hang out on a branch or a blade of grass with their legs outstretched — a behavior known as “questing” — and wait for people or animals to pass by so they can grab on and bite. “They can now actually end up latching onto hosts that don’t make direct contact with them,” he said.
A normal level of static — the charge that fur, feathers, scales or clothes pick up with movement — could pull the critters across gaps of a fraction of an inch , according to the study. While those distances may seem small to us, for a tiny tick, they represent a big leap, England said.
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