Gulf Coast Tick

Amblyomma maculatum · Order: Ixodida · Family: Ixodidae

Can spread germs or disease. It can carry the disease-causing bacterium Rickettsia parkeri, which can affect people.

Source: Wikipedia

Gulf Coast Tick
Photo: drnancyjackson, CC BY

Immature Gulf Coast ticks usually feed on ground-dwelling small mammals and birds, with cotton rats being a common host. A female tick was found carrying Rickettsia parkeri, the agent of American tick bite fever, showing the species can transmit disease to humans.

Source: Wikipedia

Does it bite or sting?

A female Gulf Coast tick collected in Delaware was infected with Rickettsia parkeri, the first proof this tick can carry a human pathogen in that state.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it lives

Immature ticks are found where small mammals and birds live on the ground.

Source: Wikipedia

What it eats

Immature ticks feed on small mammals and birds that stay on the ground, especially cotton rats.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 36 of 51 states and DC. Most records: Texas, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Carolina.

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

Source: GBIF

Status: introduced in Canada; native in North America; native in United States. Source: iNaturalist

Months it is reported in the US

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Source: GBIF

More photos

Gulf Coast Tick photo 3
Photo: Chris Hughes, CC BY
Gulf Coast Tick photo 4
Photo: Haley Daniels, CC BY
Gulf Coast Tick photo 5
Photo: Egyptiankitty590, CC BY-SA
Gulf Coast Tick photo 6
Photo: Steven Lamonde, CC BY

Questions people ask

Can Gulf Coast ticks bite humans?

Yes, they can bite and may transmit the bacterium Rickettsia parkeri to people.

Source: Wikipedia

What do immature Gulf Coast ticks feed on?

They usually feed on small ground-dwelling mammals and birds, with cotton rats being a favored host.

Source: Wikipedia

Same family (Ixodidae)

American Dog TickAmerican Dog TickDermacentor variabilisCan spread germs or diseaseEastern Black-legged TickEastern Black-legged TickIxodes scapularisCan spread germs or diseaseLone Star TickLone Star TickAmblyomma americanumCan 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/Amblyomma_maculatum

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.