Mariel Segarra

If you are hiking, stay on the trail and out of the tall grass.

And when you get home, do a tick check right away.

NPR health correspondent Ping Huang walked me through this last summer.

She says generally speaking, the longer a tick is latched onto your body, the more likely it is to spread disease.

And if you've never seen a tick, here's what you're looking for.

By the way, this is Becky Eisen, a research biologist at the CDC.

Becky is specifically talking about deer ticks, which are ticks that can carry Lyme disease.

Lone star ticks, which can carry other diseases, are often a little bit bigger.

And dog ticks, also potential disease carriers, can be much bigger than that.

A couple of other things to help you identify ticks, they don't have wings, and the nymphs and adults that are the most likely to bite you each have eight legs.

Now, if you do find a tick on your body, Pink says don't throw it out right away, as eager as you might be to get rid of it.

You can submit a photo to the University of Rhode Island's Tick Encounter website.

And they also have field guides with photos you can use as a reference.

Some symptoms of Lyme disease to look out for and definitely tell your doctor about.

Aches and pains, fever, a rash, fatigue, and swollen lymph nodes, among other things.

Okay, last up, mosquitoes.

The buzzy flying creatures that sneak into my apartment during the summer and torment me all night, whizzing by my ear, mocking me with their high-pitched song.

When you're outside, your best defense against mosquito bites is a bug repellent that includes the chemical DEET.

Here's Sammy Ramsey, a professor of entomology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

By the way, the CDC also says these EPA-registered insect repellents have been proven to be effective against mosquitoes.