Dr. Maura Finn

Good morning.

Yeah, and they are everywhere and people probably don't realise that.

Now, they are primarily in areas where there's long grass, woodland areas, even sand dunes, but they can be in urban and rural situations.

So they are everywhere, but they become more active in the summer season, spring and summer.

So it's really important you go looking for them because you won't be aware often that you have a tick bite.

Well, they're small, little hard creatures, like spider-like creatures, but they're teeny.

Most of them are very small, like three millimetres.

They get bigger when they feed.

And they're feeding on you, presumably.

Yeah, unfortunately.

They're called external parasites.

They feed on animals and they feed on blood.

And they don't jump or fly.

You brush off them.

So if you're in long grass or something...

They'll be on the grass and it will hit it kind of come against you and they sense movement.

They sense heat and they sense carbon dioxide.

And that's why how they move from animal to animal.

But they are pretty gross little creatures.

And I shouldn't say that maybe, but they have these barbed mouth parts that kind of connect into you.