All adult members of their class have eight legs, which distinguishes them from insects, which have six. Heavy infestation of ticks on cattle results in a loss of condition, failure to gain properly and a severe degree of anemia. Tick bites are irritating and cause the infested animal to rub and scratch, resulting in a scabby skin condition, sometimes followed by secondary infection. Ticks frequently use wild animal hosts to maintain tremendous populations in the vicinity of treated cattle herds. Ticks produced on wildlife can reinfest treated cattle, and they continually pose a problem for Arkansas cattle producers.
Ticks are also capable of transmitting diseases such as anaplasmosis to cattle.
The larva, nymph and adult obtain food by piercing the skin of animals and sucking blood. Eggs are laid on the ground, not on the host animal. The most important cattle tick in Arkansas is the three-host tick. The larva, nymph and adult stages of three-host ticks are each spent on a different animal. These three hosts can all be different species of animals.