American Dog Tick

Dermacentor variabilis · Order: Ixodida · Family: Ixodidae

Also called: Common Wood Tick, Wood Tick

Can spread germs or disease. The American dog tick can transmit disease-causing pathogens and may cause a neurotoxic paralysis, so it is dangerous to people and pets.

Source: Wikipedia, CDC

American Dog Tick
Photo: Nova Patch, CC BY-SA

After a blood meal the tick drops off the host and develops into the next life stage. Dermacentor ticks can produce a neurotoxin that leads to rapid flaccid paralysis, resembling Guillain to Barré syndrome.

Source: Wikipedia

Does it bite or sting?

Dermacentor ticks can cause a neurotoxic paralysis that progresses quickly to flaccid quadriparesis. In the United States ticks can transmit bacteria, viruses and parasites that cause human disease.

Source: Wikipedia, CDC

How to get rid of it

Learn where ticks live, how to avoid bites, and what to do after a bite to reduce risk.

Source: CDC

What it eats

When the animal it feeds on is infected, the tick takes up the pathogens with the blood.

Source: Wikipedia

Life cycle

After feeding, most ticks detach and prepare for the next stage of their life cycle.

Source: Wikipedia

Lookalikes

The main vectors for Lyme disease are deer ticks of the Ixodes genus, not the American dog tick.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 51 of 51 states and DC. Most records: Michigan, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Virginia, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania.

Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.

Source: GBIF

Months it is reported in the US

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Source: GBIF

More photos

American Dog Tick photo 3
Photo: aarongunnar, CC BY
American Dog Tick photo 4
Photo: Don Loarie, CC BY
American Dog Tick photo 5
Photo: unknown, CC0
American Dog Tick photo 6
Photo: Turner Brockman, CC BY-SA

Questions people ask

What illness can it cause?

It can spread bacterial, viral or parasitic infections and may cause a neurotoxic paralysis.

Source: Wikipedia, CDC

Same family (Ixodidae)

Eastern Black-legged TickEastern Black-legged TickIxodes scapularisCan spread germs or diseaseLone Star TickLone Star TickAmblyomma americanumCan spread germs or diseaseGulf Coast TickGulf Coast TickAmblyomma maculatumCan spread germs or diseaseWestern Black-legged TickWestern Black-legged TickIxodes pacificusCan spread germs or diseaseBrown Dog TickBrown Dog TickRhipicephalus sanguineusCan spread germs or diseaseRocky Mountain Wood TickRocky Mountain Wood TickDermacentor andersoniCan spread germs or disease

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermacentor_variabilis
  • CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/about/index.html

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · ITIS · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-22 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-22.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.