These blood-thirsty parasites are perfectly equipped to latch onto their victims, stay there until they are done sucking

Sep 23, 2014 22:57 GMT  ·  By

They might not have a very large fan base, but ticks are actually pretty amazing creatures. Admittedly, they are gross, scary and totally not the best life companions, but at the end of the day, they still count as some of the best predators in the world.

If you doubt that ticks should be shown at least some respect, have a look at the video below. You might just change your opinion of them. Or forever scream in horror whenever somebody simply mentions them.

According to the folks at SciShow, there are about 850 species of ticks in the world, and not one of them is a vegetarian. On the contrary, they all like to feast on blood, and they don't care if their victim is a deer, a puppy or even a child.

Interestingly enough, ticks don't actively go in search of their next victim. On the contrary, they merely sit around, waiting for somebody to cross paths with them. When finally coming into contact with a living organism, they attach themselves to it and get busy sucking.

Even weirder, it appears that there is one very special tick species, dubbed the lone star tick, which can make the people it bites allergic to red meat. By the looks of it, these blood suckers are the only animals thus far documented to transmit an allergy by biting.