Introduction

Megafauna, a term often associated with the giant animals that roamed the earth before humans hunted them to extinction. Creatures like the now extinct ground sloth and wooly mammoth whose fossils are displayed in natural history museums. Not all megafauna were hunted to extinction, some are still around. In North America, the moose is one example of megafauna that have survived the introduction of humans to their habitat. What these giants are not surviving is Dermacentor albipictus, commonly called the winter tick. The moose are not dying from some disease these ticks carry, but as a direct result of the ticks (1).