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SHIAWASSEE COUNTY (WJRT) (06/12/19) – They are small, they are about the size of a pencil eraser and they are here in the middle of Michigan.

"I saw two of them myself this year in Shiawassee County and I've never seen a tick in Shiawassee County before this year," said Larry Johnson, director of the department of Shiawassee County Health.

Johnson says the tiny native 8-legged pests are found in high wooded areas and can easily hang on human skin. That's where he says it can become dangerous.

"They can bury themselves in you and if they're buried long enough, they can pass on a disease," Johnson said.

Diseases like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever or Lyme Disease, which, if left untreated, could cause many health problems.

"It's found in the deer tick, which is smaller and smaller than the wood tick, and it has flu-like symptoms," he said.

A number of counties in western Michigan have confirmed cases of Lyme disease, while a handful of counties in central Michigan have only suspected confirmed cases.

"The weather has been milder in the last 20 years, and this has coincided with the increase in the number of ticks, but we have also seen a bit more reforestation and that is a main habitat for ticks. "

Johnson says that if you find one, he recommends removing it with tweezers and then burning it in an ashtray to make sure he's dead. But, whatever you do, ticks will never be empty.

"They're a bit older than humans, they've been crawling and crawling a long time before humans were here, and they'll probably be there after they're gone."

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