The Asian longhorned tick spreading across the US can clone itself thousands of times and even kill cattle

• Two years ago, a farmer found three cattle dead and covered in a massive number of ticks.
• The ticks turned out to be an invasive species, the Asian longhorned tick, newly established in Ohio.
• The ticks reproduce asexually, so thousands can spring up quickly in new regions.

In the summer of 2021, Risa Pesapane, an assistant professor of veterinary preventive medicine at Ohio State, got a call about three dead cattle on a farm in eastern Ohio, near the border of West Virginia. The farmer had never seen animals so infested with ticks, Pesapane told Insider.