As its Latin and English names both suggest, this tick has a strong preference for feeding on rabbits and snowshoe hares. A very strong preference. Individual animals have been found infested with thousands -- and in some cases tens of thousands -- of ticks attached to them. No word on who got to count all those ticks.

I was scrolling through the list of ticks catalogued on this site the other day and noticed that a few are missing that deserve to be mentioned. Ixodes spinipalpis (no common name), for instance. The fact that this tick has no common name gives away something important about it: it's not very well known.

Little is known about squirrel ticks but, as their name suggests, they feed primarily on tree squirrels and, to a lesser extent, on snowshoe hares. They also feed on animals that prey on squirrels. The many records from the Maritimes through to Ontario suggest these ticks are well established in much of Eastern Canada.

Lone star ticks are one of the easiest ticks to identify thanks to a conspicuous bright white dot located on the back of adult females.

The winter or moose tick (Dermacentor albipictus) is a large reddish-brown to grey-brown tick that's similar in appearance to other dermacentor tick species (American dog ticks, Rocky Mountain wood ticks) found in Canada and inhabits an extensive geographic area that includes every Canadian province and territory. The farthest north they've been found is southern Yukon.

Little is known about beaver ticks. These native ticks have been collected in Ontario as far north as the southern shores of Hudson's Bay, in Manitoba and, rarely, in Nova Scotia.

The Asian longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis) is not native to Canada but it has started to cause concerns in this country.

Once confined to Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Russia and several Pacific islands, Asian longhorned ticks were detected for the first time in the wilds of New Jersey in 2017 after occasionally turning up on imported animals at American seaports. Thanks to some entomological detective work, we now know that Asian longhorned ticks have been making their home in New Jersey since as far back as 2013. And they’re spreading fast. Between 2013 and 2023, breeding populations went from non-existent to spanning at least 19 US states.

First described in 1899, the coastal bird tick is native to BC. However, it's not terribly well studied and little is known about its life history. Early researchers describe it as being fairly common in coastal areas of the province where it mainly feeds on grouse.

What we know about this tick species is largely based on records from more than 50 years ago and scant research in recent years which show that specimens have been collected from at least 10 bird species in BC including sooty grouse and California quail.

Western blacklegged ticks (Ixodes pacificus) were first identified in 1904 and haven't been intensively studied in Canada, so a lot of the information we have is the product of research efforts that have been undertaken in the western US and occasional initiatives in this country.

Ornithodoros hermsi ticks are something of a mystery. Although first identified in 1935 and thought to be the cause of tick-borne relapsing fever in British Columbia, they have proven elusive and, as a result, very little research has been conducted on them in this country.