LIFE CYCLE

The deer tick, or Ixodes scapularis, serves as the vector for the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. They feed on humans, small mice, deer, and other animals that they are able to latch onto. After latching on, the deer tick takes a blood meal and in doing so passes on the lyme disease causing spirochetes to the animal's blood stream. The tick must remain attached for as much as 2-3 days in order to take a complete meal, and is able to transmit the spirochetes during this time.

The two-year Ixodes Scapularis life cycle. (Link)

These ticks exhibit a 2 year life cycle, making certain seasons most common for new lyme infections.

Newly laid eggs. (Link)

In this lifecycle, the tick passes through four major stages of life: the egg, the larvae, the nymph, and the adult.

The lifecycle begins with the eggs being laid in the early spring time of the first year. Each female can be expected to lay approximately 3000 eggs, usually in a pile of leaf litter [1].

Moving from right to left on the ruler, the larvae hatch out in the summer and take their first feeding. This is commonly when they first acquire the spirochete infection. Over the fall they molt into nymphs which take their first meal over the following spring or summer. These nymphs molt into adults over the fall, feed the next spring, and then drop off and lay their eggs for the next generation's lifecycle to begin.