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posted by chromas on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the tick-talk dept.

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.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Thexalon on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:57PM (3 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:57PM (#719614)

    Really? Imagine the amount of annoyance most guys get from 1 partner, then multiply that by 400! Sure, you get laid a lot, but you also now have to fix 400 appliances and open 12000 jars every week.

    --
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  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday August 09 2018, @11:01PM (1 child)

    by Gaaark (41) on Thursday August 09 2018, @11:01PM (#719670) Journal

    And when they get to the point where they all sync: a week of being told how lucky he is by 400 females, 400 times a day.

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    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 2) by legont on Friday August 10 2018, @01:25AM

      by legont (4179) on Friday August 10 2018, @01:25AM (#719723)

      Those ticks can hold sperm, I guess.

      Consider the fate of American water turtles. Females need to mate perhaps 2-3 times over the lifetime as they can store sperm for years. However, when they migrate to special children bearing ponds, they are ambushed and repeatedly raped by males; pregnant already that is. As they are territorial, males are actually fight with each other for the good location based on a likely female migration route. Did I mention the girls are run down by similar behaving American motorists?

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @10:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @10:47AM (#719861)

    Really? Imagine the amount of annoyance most guys get from 1 partner

    And compare that to the amount of annoyance the entire internet gets from a few guys who have no partner.