'Bat Tick' Discovered In 2 NJ Counties: Here's What This Means

NEW JERSEY – A tick species associated with bats has been reported for the first time in New Jersey and could pose health risks to people, pets and livestock, according to a Rutgers-led study in the Journal of Medical Entomology.

This soft tick species, a parasite of bats, is known to be in 29 of the 48 contiguous US states, and was confirmed in New Jersey since larvae was collected in Mercer and Sussex counties.

The species, otherwise known as Carios kelleyi, is a new addition to the list of New Jersey ticks. Read more: Here Are The Biting Ticks In NJ: Very High Number Of Lyme Cases

While the public health risk remains not completely known, “finding them on New Jersey bats was an unusual event that prompted bat specialists to contact us," said senior author Dina M. Fonseca, a professor and director of the Center for Vector Biology in the Department of Entomology at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

"Maybe these ticks are becoming more common,” Fonseca said.

In other states, C. kelleyi has been found infected with microbes that are harmful to people, pets and livestock.

There have been reports of this soft tick feeding on humans, and the bat that hosts them regularly roosts in structures such as attics and barns, the Rutgers-led study says.

The University Rhode Island, in its own study, said this group of ticks mostly stays hidden, dwelling in their preferred hosts' roost or nesting habitat.

Twenty-eight of 31 ticks collected in Iowa recently were connected to a group of ticks associated with spotted fever, according to the University of Rhode Island.

Here are some of the symptoms of spotted fever, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

• Fever
• Headache
• Rash
• Muscle aches

See your health care provider if you become ill after having been bitten by a tick, or having spent time in areas where ticks may live, the CDC says.

The bat tick is a “soft” tick. Deer ticks, which carry Lyme disease, are an example of “hard” ticks, according to Rutgers University researchers.

“All ticks feed on blood and may transmit pathogens (disease-causing microbes) during feeding,” said lead author James L. Occi, a doctoral student in the Rutgers Center for Vector Biology at Rutgers University–New Brunswick.

“We need to be aware that if you remove bats from your belfry, attic or elsewhere indoors, ticks that feed on those bats may stay behind and come looking for a new source of blood. There are records of C. kelleyi biting humans,” Occi said.

Fonseca said said the tick belongs to the family Argasidae, known as "soft ticks," because their body looks leathery and soft. That is in contrast to the "hard ticks" – from the family "Ixodidae" – that New Jerseyans are more familiar with.

Scientists in the Endangered and Nongame Species Program of the Division of Fish and Wildlife in the state Department of Environmental Protection found the tick larvae on bats last year.

Technically, this is not the first time a soft tick has been reported in New Jersey. In 2001, a related tick species – Carios jersey – was found in amber in Middlesex County. That specimen was 90 million to 94 million years old.

“The next steps are to collect more soft tick specimens and test them for disease-causing microbes,” Occi said.