The animals that ticks bite in the U.S. South can impact Lyme disease spread

In the South, ticks attach more often to skinks, which don’t pass on Lyme bacteria as well as mice

A sign next to a hiking path in the woods

Black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) are found throughout the eastern half of the United States in woodland areas such as this in one in Delaware. Yet cases of Lyme disease are much more common in the North than the South.

Herb Quick/Alamy Stock Photo

The paucity of Lyme disease cases in the southern United States may be partly due to what black-legged ticks in southern locales bite.