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Hello all, it’s been a long time since I’ve last posted. A lot has changed, and I’ve been getting the fossil hunting bug again. (No pun-intended) You know what bug I do not want to catch? Ticks. I’ve already seen 3 this year, thankfully none on myself since I’ve been avoiding brush and tall grass. Yet the fear of catching a tick-born-disease is keeping me from fossil hunting. I am going on a fossil hunt out to a spot in western Pennsylvania this Saturday with my fossil club that I haven’t been to since 2016. I’m excited but also nervous about ticks. In the past there wasn’t a ton of brush there, since it’s a dam spillway in a park. But I went during the fall then, and as I remember ticks weren’t nearly as much of an issue then as they are today. Do any of you have any tips to keep ticks off of me this trip? I’ve read about DEET and permethrin sprays, and I am still unsure. I have two cats, so I am also worried about the toxicity of permethrin and other anti-tick substances. I will probably be wearing jeans and long sleeves to protect myself. Any help would be appreciated.

Back at the beginning of July, I was at Ramanessin Brook looking for a path I just knew must be right in front of me to access the brook further upstream. Just walked 20 feet or so off path. I hadn’t treated my clothes in permethrin or loaded up on DEET, since I thought I would be in the water all day. I ended up removing eight ticks off my skin (some of them are shown here) as well as another 10 on my pack and clothes. Lucky for me on this trip I was not alone and could be completely searched. Course, remove with tweezers or nails from the tick head. The large number of ticks in cretaceous amber speaks to their enduring success. I’ve had several students over the years who have suffered from undiagnosed Lyme disease, caused by a spirochete bacteria inside the tick gut, and their stories are truly heartbreaking. Take a little time to investigate what ticks and tick-borne diseases are in your area and always search afterwards.

Fossil hunters tromping through fields, forests, pastures, and grasslands should always be careful of tick bites. The upswing in Tick-Borne Meat Allergy is an important reason to be careful of ticks while fossil hunting. What the Mystery of the Tick-Borne Meat Allergy Could Reveal. Unraveling why tick bites are suddenly causing a strange reaction in some people who eat meat could help scientists better understand how all allergies work. The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/24/magazine/what-the-mystery-of-the-tick-borne-meat-allergy-could-reveal.html Red Meat Allergies Caused By Tick Bites Are On The Rise Morning Edition, June 25, 2018 https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/06/25/621080751/red-meat-allergies-caused-by-tick-bites-are-on-the-rise A couple of more web pages are: Amblyomma americanum (Lone Star Tick) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblyomma_americanum NIAID scientists link cases of unexplained anaphylaxis to red meat allergy". National Institutes of Health (NIH). 2017-11-28. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/niaid-scientists-link-cases-unexplained-anaphylaxis-red-meat-allergy Yours, Paul H.

With spring rains and rising temperatures, the riparian expanses in Texas and elsewhere return to their verdant glory and beckon us afield with promises of nature's treasures. With renewed opportunities for spectacular collecting come renewed opportunities for dangerous encounters and serious maladies. Let's review a few: Insects A fossil buddy swung by my house one night last week after a whirlwind, one day road trip. We hung out for a while and traded a few fossils. A couple days later, he started showing me pics of strange rashes and finally went to urgent care, and then the hospital. It turns out that he has contracted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. This is a very serious deal. This could happen to any of us. A few precautions that I take include liberal application of potent bug spray, and choosing a course to minimize brush busting. Before entering the field, I pull up cuffs of pants and spray my ankles, shins and calves. Also, I pull up my shirt and spray the waistline. After spraying hands and shirt (I wear long sun block shirts) I spray my neck, then block my eyes, hold my breath, and spray my whole head. So far I've been lucky. Snakes The upswing in temps has brought a marked increase in my encounters with various snakes, mostly water mocassins, often coiled with mouth open and head shaking. Although I generally carry a licensed firearm, considering human reaction time and distance of snake encounters, it is best to walk with a stick or similar to knock a snake out of the way if needed. In my experience, they aren't very aggressive unless I haplessly stomp inside of their comfort zone. I've never had to kill a water mocassin and try to stay in areas open enough to see for at least 10 feet. That way I tend to see them with time and distance to reroute without even having to take a swing. Poison Ivy, Oak, etc. Best bet for highly allergic people like me is to not walk through the stuff. Through great suffering and reflection, I have learned to be constantly aware of what type of vegetation I'm walking through. I try not to touch any plant unnecessarily. Tecnu is a great topical protective barrier, but I saw a Youtube video of perhaps an even more useful idea. A guy explained an informal study he conducted and his most useful suggestion post contact was to get down in the creek and scour the contact area with handfuls of wet sand without delay. He felt that the mild abrasive action of sand administered in a timely fashion was effective at lifting urushiol from the skin before it could set up and do its nasty deed. I have employed this technique and not had serious outbreaks in several years. But my first line of defense is avoidance of contact. Be safe and have fun!