Our Mission
By working together with thousands of citizen scientists, Project Acari wants to
understand how dangerous tick diseases are affecting our communities.
Hundreds of thousands of people, dogs and cats are affected by tick diseases,
like Lyme disease, every year. Ticks carry over 20 different known diseases, and
there may be more we haven’t discovered yet. As global temperatures rise, these
diseases are spreading.
Project Acari is going right to the heart of this epidemic. We are studying
the ticks themselves to find out where the risk of contracting disease is
highest, and how diseases spread from year to year. We are also studying how
other factors, like climate change and the tick’s microbiome, may affect the
risk of tick diseases.
We need you to send us the ticks you find in your neighborhood, whether
you’re worried about tick diseases or not. By testing the DNA of ticks from
across the United States, we can build the most complete map yet of how these
diseases are affecting ourselves and our pets.