claim: A new, rare tick burrows under your skin and moves about undetected.
origin: In early May 2017, a viral post started circulating on Facebook, warning viewers that there was a new type of tick for which toÂ be on the lookout. The post contains two photographs, one of a tick, and the other showingÂ a personâ€™s skin â€” supposedly after the tick has burrowed inside. It was shared thousands of times: < This is 100% false. Itâ€™s an experiment I did with my daughters. We wanted to see how fake news travels without anyone questioning itâ€¦Â I wasnâ€™t trying to scare anyone, nor did I think it would get more than 100 shares. I purposely used photos that looked fake. Like the St George watermark picture, but people still shared away without asking me any questions. > As Gallagher pointed out, the first clue the post was not an authentic warning was that the pictures come from two different sources that have nothing to do with a â€œnew rare tick warning.â€ The top photograph, if clicked, reveals a watermark from St. George News, which is a local news outlet for Southern Utah: < Prior to becoming ill, the visitor had been vacationing on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park and adjacent areas in mid-September, according to the statement. The visitor was treated successfully with a course of antibiotics. People contract TBRF after being bitten by infected soft ticks, which typically feed on rodents Tick-borne relapsing fever, also called TBRF, is a rare, but treatable and curable, bacterial infection that occurs in the western United States, the media statement said. People contract TBRF after being bitten by infected soft ticks, which typically feed on rodents. > The photograph below it has been on the Internet since 2008. It was originally posted on a message board for the web site SportFishWorld.com. The image was taken by a man who was bitten by a tick (but it simply bit him, and did not burrow beneath his skin). He documented the healing process: Gallagher told us that even though as of 23 May 2017 the post has been shared more than 50,000 times, no one bothered to ask him where he got the information â€” or whether it was real or fake.