Ticks use sticky pad to hold tight to skin.

Dining opportunities are rare for ticks. The notorious pests spend as much as 90% of their lives clambering around in leaf litter and only embark on epic expeditions to the tips of grass and leaves when they need to feed. Wrapping their limbs around slender smooth stalks of grass when they ascend, ticks must also grasp any passing opportunity to latch onto smooth skin or the hairy pelts of animals. ‘We wondered how their feet are designed and how strongly they can hold on to surfaces’, says Dagmar Voigt from the Technische Universtität Dresden, Germany, adding that in addition to clinging on to a wide range of different surfaces, the feet of an adult tick may have to bear up to 135 times their unfed weight after ticks have consumed a blood meal. Undeterred by the tick’s fearsome disease-spreading reputation, Voigt headed out into the undergrowth to capture castor bean ticks (Ixodes ricinus) sheltering under leaves and blades of grass to learn more about their feet.