A carpet python from Coolangatta that was fished out of a backyard swimming pool on January 9th by a professional snake catcher was a Lovecraftian horror. According to this article:
A snake that was recently captured near a suburban home in Queensland, Australia, was covered with hundreds upon hundreds of ticks. So many of the bloodsucking parasites clung to the snake that the unfortunate reptile looked like it was wearing a second coat of living scales.
Currumbin Wildlife Hospital Foundation in Queensland reported that 511 ticks in total were removed from the python.
Facebook page here
Nightmare inducing images here and here.
A similar nightmare inducing polyticks infestation here
An extreme infestation such as this likely happened because the snake was already sick, likely with a compromised immune system, Emily Taylor, a professor of biological sciences at California Polytechnic State University, told Live Science. When a tick bites an animal and injects anticoagulants from its saliva, the animal sets off an immune response that can kill the tick or slow down its feeding. However, if an animal's immune response is dampened, "you may see a greater number of ticks feeding or concluding their feeding," Taylor said.
Rebecca Trout Fryxell, an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture adds
sated female ticks can lay thousands of eggs. If the eggs are fertilized, this can blanket the host with more hungry mouths to feed.
Robots are always the answer.
Although now tick free, Nike, as the python has been named, is still suffering from anemia and "a nasty infection" but it is intended to return him to the wild once he fully recovers.
(Score: 5, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:34AM (3 children)
You know, when you go to feed on the recently deceased, all the fauna that once relied upon that creature for their livelihood are in the market for a new host. So of course the blood and offal covered neck of the Buzzard is you go-to next-best-choice option. So, after a while, the Mighty Buzzard is dragged down by the sheer weight of the parasites, blood-sucking entitlement liberals with Pink or purple hair, but no matter how furiously the TMB grooms himself, there are always more, and so he ends up with a second skin, a skin composed of Racist Former Republicans (Steven King), and idiots in favor of a shut-down (Neutered Gingrinch), and the current parasite in charge of the NRA, Ollie Gone-South. And of course all the alt-right white-supremacists who despise him for his Native blood, but will gladly crawl onto his body when the one they were parasiting before has become, um, not viable.
So this is the curse of being a carrion feeder. On the upside, dinner does not fight back, much. On the down-side, you have to adopt all the parasites, diseases, Trump-tweets, and so on, that are the substance of your repast. Something like the practice, pre-Luther, of "Sin-eaters", who would hire themselves out at a funeral, to eat a banquet, at the price of taking on all the sins of the deceased.
Wow, there is the Wikipedia Entry [wikipedia.org]
The Atlas Obscura [atlasobscura.com] entry on how this was the worst Uber gig of the middle ages. (Hey! Disruptive sin technology! Cool!)
And, of course , there are many movies on this theme, like The Sin Eater [imdb.com] of 2004, but I am not sure this is the one remember. But have fun, all you many and sinful solylentils, in trying to barter sin and bit-coin, in a free market where someone like, but not identical to, khallow, makes sense. Seriously.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:38AM (1 child)
Why don't you just do the right thing and kill yourself, you worthless cock-gobbling loser.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:19AM
He can't, poor magister, he's so left biased he can do only left things.
You, on the other side, don't seem to suffer the same impairment. Just don't forget to let a letter explaining your suicide, you don't want innocent people be suspected of your death, do you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 16 2019, @07:22PM
Also, Lyme disease causes neurological problems. [mayoclinic.org]
Hmmm....Aris, you might be onto something here!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:36AM (2 children)
In both cases, they suck resources without having any redeeming aspects.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:52AM
Oh, on the contrary! Ticks, and other parasites, weed out the weak, the white supremacists who cannot get job because of affirmative action, the conservative "scholar" who cannot get a tenure track position in a real University because of Liberal bias, the alt-right He-men who cannot get a date, maintain a relationship, or actually work a marriage. All these illegal immigrants replace as more healthy and successful examples of humanity. How hard is this to understand? Immigrants get it done! They are all like the Cable Guy, while Richard Spencer could not stop himself from beating his (Russian) wife [google.com], and Matt Heimbach, of the Traditionalist Workers Party, could not restrain himself from bonking his own mother-in-law, repeatedly [washingtonpost.com].
So these, and other less desireable specimens, have been eliminated, more or less, from the gene pool of humanity, once again proving that White folks are stupid, and deserve to become extinct. Because if any of this is what it means to be white, I want nothing to do with it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @10:06PM
Could be worse. The snake could have been covered with politicians and lawyers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:50AM (6 children)
There are special Internet publications that specialize in shocking, revolting content. I do not see why this article should be on this site.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday January 16 2019, @08:14AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Troll) by aristarchus on Wednesday January 16 2019, @09:20AM (2 children)
There is no such vote. The best you can do is to spam mod the TMB. I did it once, and it felt wonderful, almost as good as noodling catfish. But short of that, there is no way to keep the editors from driving the site into the ground, but not getting humor, by humoring the alt-right, and by putting up with The Mighty Buzzard, whose blog this is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @09:32AM (1 child)
How does one noodle a catfish?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:22AM
You'll have to PM TMB for that, I'm afraid.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aiwarrior on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:08AM
This is a wild life/biology/science article it certainly is intereseting. It does not include gore nor anything shocking unless you click on it.
Just because you find ticks gross, and i do also, it does not detract the knowledge that, for example snakes are also affected by ticks. I did not know that.
There is even expert insight of the field in the article. You should vote on your own mouse click, do not impose yourself on others please
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:37AM
Yeah, that last image was over the top. *shudder*
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:59AM (6 children)
They "removed" the ticks? Damn, just throw the whole thing into a hot, hot fire. It's the only way to be sure.
Have Australians never seen any sci-fi or creature horror movie, ever?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @01:41PM
Have you not seen australian wildlife? If the creature from the black lagoon turned up, we'd say G'day and give him a beer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 16 2019, @02:13PM
They don't need movies, they have mouse plagues in real life...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @03:32PM (3 children)
> Damn, just throw the whole thing into a hot, hot fire.
No effect. (Southern Australia is expecting 45-47C temperatures today..)
The method for removing Aussie ticks that I was taught was to eye-drop overproof alcohol onto the embedded head of the tick, and then tweeze it off when it lifts it head out for more..
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:01PM (2 children)
Nope.
Not sure if this was attempting to be humorous because people actually have thought that using alcohol is a good method for removal. Any irritants but just scraping the tick off is liable to cause the tick to disgorge part of its stomach contents, causing a higher chance of infection. While this might occur anyway and you might be infected anyway, straight removal is the way to go [cdc.gov]. (Though I have to admit I like using a notched credit card instead of forceps or tweezers for people).
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fyngyrz on Wednesday January 16 2019, @09:20PM (1 child)
Well, for my own preferences in this, I prefer to use a shovel for people. You can both dispatch them and bury them with it, plus lean on it when you need to rest. All in all, a lovely, multi-purpose tool: low maintenance, effective, relatively inexpensive, so far no infringement on keeping or carrying, and as a bonus, it never needs reloading.
--
Anything you say will be misquoted and used against you.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday January 16 2019, @09:26PM
I may need to upgrade.
This sig for rent.