Marieline Amaya: Weeks 3 & 4 at ABDL SCDHS

 Weeks 3 & 4:

These past two weeks I have gotten a lot of experience collecting ticks. When going out to the core sites I have gotten more comfortable being able to point out the different nymphs, the blacklegged nymphs were harder to point out but I feel like I got the hang of them now! I am still continuing to read literature to decide on a project, I have been reading a lot about climate and its impact on tick population, but I will see what I write my project on.

I have also been able to sort ticks from other core sites. I’ve been really enjoying looking through and seeing the types of ticks that we find and visualize even further the tick populations present on Long Island.

One of my favorite things we have done in the past week was attend a council regarding ticks. At this meeting there are all different types of people from entomologist to doctors to directors of businesses regarding tick control. This experience was very cool as I got to see how people from all fields work together to help combat all issues regarding ticks on Long Island. I have enjoyed my time here so far and look forward to the upcoming weeks!


Figure 1: My own Tick ID Card!


Figure 2: Some ticks I have sorted.


 Figure 3: Other wildlife encountered while sorting. 

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