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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
A vicious species of tick originating from Eastern Asia has invaded the US and is rapidly sweeping the Eastern Seaboard, state and federal officials warn.
The tick, the Asian longhorned tick (or Haemaphysalis longicornis), has the potential to transmit an assortment of nasty diseases to humans, including an emerging virus that kills up to 30 percent of victims. So far, the tick hasn't been found carrying any diseases in the US. It currently poses the largest threat to livestock, pets, and wild animals; the ticks can attack en masse and drain young animals of blood so quickly that they die—an execution method called exsanguination.
Key to the tick's explosive spread and bloody blitzes is that its invasive populations tend to reproduce asexually, that is, without mating. Females drop up to 2,000 eggs over the course of two or three weeks, quickly giving rise to a ravenous army of clones. In one US population studied so far, experts encountered a massive swarm of the ticks in a single paddock, totaling well into the thousands. They speculated that the population might have a ratio of about one male to 400 females.
Yesterday, August 7, Maryland became the eighth state to report the presence of the tick. It followed a similar announcement last Friday, August 3, from Pennsylvania. Other affected states include New York, Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
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(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:24PM (2 children)
"Exsanguination" means "blood loss". No more, no less. It seems like the author doesn't know this ("draining of blood is called "exsanguination").
We say this word for the execution method because "blood loss" can easily be fatal, but "exsanguination" is also, for example, a valid modern medical treatment for blood iron overload disorders like hemochromatosis (blood is too high in iron -> remove some blood (exsanguination) -> the body makes new blood that isn't high in iron -> average iron level goes down).
It is very impressive and a little scary that a tick that accomplish this in a decently large animal.
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:55PM (1 child)
> It is very impressive and a little scary that a tick that accomplish this in a decently large animal.
I'd go for "stuff of nightmares". It's the combined work of thousands of ticks on a single animal.
The pics on TFA are really creepy. Even college rugby teams don't drink multiple times their body weight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2018, @07:34PM
I'm not so sure. I think my team would have given that a pretty good run (we had a fly half intercept a pass and run it back over 3/4th of the pitch where he touched it down in the back of the try zone, then threw up--after that I made a mental note that if I was going to score, I'm only going to go for just over the line).