After feeding on the host's blood, the female hard tick lays thousands of eggs and then she dies. Some species of hard ticks can develop in just over two months, and live without blood for over one year as adults. Soft Ticks Soft ticks are generally found in warm climates, rarely travel from their attachment site, and usually feed at night. The most common soft tick is the Spinose Ear Tick. They enter the ear of the host when they are larvae, attach themselves, and stay in the ear until the adult stage when they mate and drop off.
Females deposit many small batches of eggs before they die.
Even though they can live in the host's environment, they are not parasitic in the adult stage. Some types of soft ticks can develop in as little as 30 days. Some larvae and nymphs can survive for months and adults for years without a blood meal. At each stage the mosquito's appearance changes completely, and the insect lives a different kind of life. In warm climates, some species develop from newly hatched eggs into adults in only a week.