New analysis from Simon Fraser College reveals ants might be an answer to forestall tick bites.
In a media launch Monday, the college mentioned researchers discovered that ticks would keep away from ants and the world they had been in. Even as soon as the ants would depart the world, ticks would nonetheless not go to the place the ants beforehand had been.
“They might see that there have been ants and mainly go, ‘I’m not going to go there as a result of there could also be ants there or there could also be ants there once more quickly,” mentioned Claire Gooding, the lead writer of the research.
The analysis was revealed lately within the journal Royal Society Open Science.
Gooding mentioned the crew researched ants as a possible resolution as a result of the bugs work in massive teams and use chemical substances to speak.
“They’re social bugs and use an enormous vary of pheromones to speak with each other,” Gooding mentioned.
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After discovering the effectiveness of ant pheromones, the crew labored with an artificial chemist and was capable of “recreate an artificial model” of the pheromones.
This artificial ant pheromone was additionally profitable in repelling ticks.
“There’s fairly a giant danger of tick encounters in the summertime,” mentioned Gooding. “Folks usually encounter them on the perimeters of trails.”
The research suggests hikers might think about using ant pheromones as a repellent to scare off ticks.
They’ve a patent utility in course of for the repellant chemical substances they developed.
There are three species of ticks that generally chew people. In some instances, if bites aren’t handled rapidly sufficient, they will show deadly.
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