In spring and summer months, warnings about tick-borne illnesses are spread in regions of the United States where ticks are prevalent. In 2015, increased concern over the Powassan virus (contracted via ticks) heightened the spread of warnings about ticks and the diseases harbored by them.
In early April 2015, a tick-related photograph began circulating on Facebook with several explanations appended to it. In some iterations, the user who shared the image reportedly spotted the unusual clump and later searched for the image to find out what it was; in others, the user identified the depicted substance as tick eggs (or a "tick nest") and warned fellow Facebook users to "burn" the eggs on sight. The photograph was often identified by those who shared it as "local" in states as distant from one another as Texas and New York:
On our walk today, I noticed a weird clump of black "balls" on the path. I took a picture of it and when I got home, I was able to zoom in on the picture and noticed a couple of little red ticks. I googled 'tick eggs' and that's what the black clump was! Tick eggs! Yuck. If I had known, I would have smashed them. ugh
