(Radio Iowa) – There’s another tick to be on the look-out for, especially if you raise cattle or horses in Iowa. The Asian longhorned tick has been found in 19 states, including Missouri. Veterinarian Grant Dewell says “They can bite humans, but they tend to prefer livestock.” Dewell is with Iowa State University Extension, and his research specialty is beef cattle.

The Centers for Disease Control has issued a warning about these ticks due to recently published research about three Ohio cows that died after being bitten tens of thousands of times by Asian longhorned ticks. This tick species was first found in the U-S in 2010. Dewell says a female can produce on her own. “A single female will produce several thousand eggs…so they can really expand exponentially their numbers once they get into a population,” Dewell says, “They can really overwhelm an animal in some cases.”

Asian longhorned tick (Iowa State University Extension photo)

Researchers in Ohio concluded the cattle there died of blood loss. Dewell says it’s important to keep grass cut around feedlots and make sure animals are grazing in pastures, because ticks prefer to live in areas with tall grass.”We’ll see how far north it spreads,” Dewell says. “It is somewhat cold tolerant, but it doesn’t love the cold either. We have ticks in Iowa, but they’re not as severe as in Missouri and Arkansas and those types of (warmer) places.”

While Asian longhorned ticks seem to prefer cattle and horses, they have been found on dozens of animals in the United States. A man from New York is the first known human to be bitten in the U-S by this species of ticks. That happened in June of 2018.