In early July, 1863, troops from General Robert E. Leeâs Army of Northern Virginia (the Confederates) met up with a patrol of Union cavalry on the outskirts of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Over the next three days, this encounter grew into a turning point of the Civil War.
In the South, lone star ticks (Amblyomma americanum) can also transmit Lyme disease or a closely related illness. Ticks have four life stages: egg, larva, nymph and adult. In each stage after hatching, they suck blood from animals like mice, squirrels, birds and deer.
D iseases: American dog ticks are the major carrier of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which is less common than Lyme disease, but a potentially more serious illness. This tick has also been known to transmit tularemia, and to cause tick paralysis.It cannot transmit the spirochetes responsible for Lyme disease.icks, of which there are more than 500 species world-wide, are parasitic arthropods closely related to mites. Most ticks feed on the blood of warm-blooded mammals but some species also feed on birds, reptiles and even amphibians. Fish are apparently the only vertebrates not plagued by these little blood-suckers.