Deer Tick

The deer tick, more precisely called the black-legged tick, is a hard bodied tick found across much of the eastern half of North America. Its common name comes from the fact that its adult life stages frequently feed on white-tailed deer. In 1979 ticks associated with babesiosis in the northeastern United States were given the scientific name Ixodes dammini and the common name deer tick, but in 1993 that species was shown to be the same as the already-named Ixodes scapularis, the black-legged tick, from the southeastern United States.