Castor bean tick♀︎

Last update: 19 April 2019
garden
species

LOCATION: Krimpen aan den IJssel, garden

OBSERVATION:
2019-III-29


I found this beauty slowly crawling on a plant. It is a tick, so not an insect and therefor off topic, but since I rather liked it I thought it worth a post.

It is a female Castor bean tick (Ixodes ricinus) [1, 2], the most common tick in the Netherlands according to Wikipedia.

The female gender is recognisable by the long palps, the protrusions on the ‘face’ along the boring apparatus. The part of the abdomen with the red color is the part that will swell when the tick fills itself with blood.

Castor bean tick ♀︎
(Ixodes ricinus)

References

1 Waarneming.nl, Tekensleutel

2 School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, "Bristol University Tick ID"

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