Will ants protect tourists from ticks?

A real scourge of sunny days, ticks are a problem for tourists: they sometimes carry Lyme disease.
Hikers know them well on sunny days when they walk along the trails. Returning from a hike, they carefully check to see if they picked up anything.

Read Ticks and Lyme disease

Beware of ticks while hiking

Ant trail repels ticks

Canadian researchers at Simon Fraser University (SFU) have just discovered in a new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science that ant pheromones may be an effective repellent against these arachnids.

These scientists conducted experiments: Do ticks avoid certain insect and arachnid predators, such as ants, beetles, or spiders?
The results obtained are very encouraging: mites avoid surfaces where the ants were, including places they have already left.

The study authors were able to identify the specific pheromones that cause ticks to escape, as well as the ant glands that produce them. They found that a synthetic version of these pheromones also repelled ticks. All that remains is to sell these synthetic pheromones in the form of topical repellents that can be applied directly to the body, or as an environmental repellent to discourage ticks from locating on a walking trail.

Read Chloe Goorjian’s article “How ants can protect tourists from ticks» published by geo.fr

Other methods of tick control have been studied: fox against ticks, where it limits the spread of rodents that carry ticks. Foxes fight the spread of Lyme disease