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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Arachnids (Arachnida) » Mites and Ticks (Acari) » Parasitiformes » Ticks (Ixodida) » Hard Ticks (Ixodidae) » Dermacentor » American Dog Tick (Dermacentor variabilis)
Photo#231149
Tick capitulum - Dermacentor variabilis
Copyright © 2008 Jay Barnes

Tick capitulum - Dermacentor variabilis
Licking County, Ohio, USA
May 15, 2008
or at least most of it. Ventral view. From one of the many ticks I found crawling across the patio or back door at home this year.

No idea if an ID can be determined from this. When collected the body appeared identical to most of the dog ticks presented in the guide, but it's been sitting in clearing fluid for at least three months now.

Fourty-two exposures compiled in Helicon Focus.

Edit: Replaced image with same image stack compiled with the FREE version of TuFuse. Much better results. Single license for TuFuse Pro is a whopping 35 bucks.

Images of this individual: tag all
Tick capitulum - Dermacentor variabilis Chelicerae, hypostome - Dermacentor variabilis Antero-ventral-lateral view - Dermacentor variabilis
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Contributed by Jay Barnes on 4 October, 2008 - 11:49pm
Last updated 9 October, 2008 - 1:46pm

Great close ups
Awesome detail on the hypostome. By the look of it, I think your specimen is a male Dermacentor variabilis.
… Jon Oliver, 6 October, 2008 - 8:59am login or register to post comments

 
Thanks Jon
Thanks. Moving to guide then. If anyone has any doubts please speak up.
… Jay Barnes, 9 October, 2008 - 1:45pm login or register to post comments

Updated
image. Added scale bar.
… Jay Barnes, 5 October, 2008 - 8:00pm login or register to post comments

Wow, beautiful detail
it looks almost like a scanning electron microscope shot, but those are usually black and white. How big is the capitulum?
… Hannah Nendick-Mason, 5 October, 2008 - 9:25am login or register to post comments

 
Scanning EM
No criticism meant, but all scanning EMs are gray scale. Any that look like they're in color have been colorized in an image processor.

This is a big problem, I believe, especially in textbooks, where the techniques used are sometimes not mentioned.

A scanning EM is not even an image until it's shown on a monitor. There's no color involved because there's no light involved. Many scanning EMs have color added after the image is saved, sometimes by assigning colors to the density of gray.
… Stephen Hart, 25 October, 2008 - 7:09pm login or register to post comments

 
Thanks guys
Hard to pick a measurement for this, which is why I included a scale bar in the other image.

I'll add a scale bar to this one in a bit. I'm currently reworking the stack with TuFuse and getting much better results.
… Jay Barnes, 5 October, 2008 - 4:27pm login or register to post comments

No help
IDing but would like to say very nice photography Jay.

Gary
… Gary Kessler, 5 October, 2008 - 6:44am login or register to post comments

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