Lapping onto the food chain

The photograph below is Slide 5 of 7, "Nature’s Born Phlebotomists," from Natalie Angier's article, "A Taste for Blood," in today's New York Times.

DEER TICK: This tick, which is the size of a pinhead when it starts searching for a bloody meal, is responsible for about 20,000 reported cases of Lyme disease each year in the United States. [caption from the Times article, Photo: Clouds Hill Imaging]

I chose this photograph because of all of the deer ticks that my wife and I have picked off ourselves (and off our poodle) after being in various fields and woods of North Carolina's Piedmont Forest. We are grateful that, so far, none of us has contracted Lyme disease (or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever).