It’s hard to love a tick.
For the past week, I’ve been researching for a column about the diseases ticks spread. Despite the angle, I ended up kind of loving ticks.
Ticks only move 2-3 feet from where they are born, unless they hitch a ride. They live in the soil. It takes them half a day to crawl up a blade of grass because of their tiny legs (eight of them, because they are arachnids, more like spiders than beetles). They latch onto hosts by holding up their little arms as to hug someone. This process is called “questing.” If they don’t succeed, they must crawl all the way down into the soil for the night. They don’t drink water because they can’t. They excrete special salts to absorb water through moisture in the air.
It all sounds very interesting when you don’t have to look at it up close. In fact, it sounds like a children’s book to me.
Northern Minnesota is “Tick Country,” and this is undoubtedly “Tick Season,” so I would hate to add something repetitive to “Tick Discourse.” Today’s column (gift link) is an attempt to explain why we should care just a little bit more about ticks and tick-borne diseases than we did last year.
Ticks are more numerous, more varied and carry more diseases than even a few years ago. We also see ticks in more places than ever, and we are often their unwitting accomplices in feeding them.
Read “Ticks are on the rise in Minnesota — and so are the diseases they carry” in the Tuesday, June 16, 2026 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
