Pest Organisms / Brown Dog Tick
Identification
for Brown Dog Tick
Adults are reddish-brown with a stretched-out oval body and none of the pale ornate markings of some other ticks. Unfed adults are small, roughly 2 to 3 mm long; a nymph is about 1 mm and the larva around half a millimeter. Source: https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN378 A reliable close-up clue is the six-sided (hexagonal) basis capituli, the plate behind the mouthparts. Once fed, a female balloons to roughly a hundred times her starting size, fading to gray and swelling to about the bulk of a raisin. Source: https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN378 In field terms, unfed females run about one-eighth to one-quarter inch and reach half an inch when engorged; males are slightly smaller. Source: https://extension.umaine.edu/ticks/maine-ticks/brown-dog-tick-or-kennel-tick/