About 15 different species of ticks occur in Indiana.  Of these, only 4 species are normally encountered by people and their pets.  These are the American dog tick, Dermacentor variabilis,  the lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum, the blacklegged tick (also known as the deer tick or the Lyme disease tick), Ixodes scapularis, and the brown dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus.  The majority of ticks attached to people during the spring and summer in Indiana are American dog ticks; the second most common species is the lone star tick.  Increasingly, blacklegged ticks are being found, especially in the northwestern part of the state.  The brown dog tick has a limited distribution in Indiana.  The remaining eleven species of ticks are found almost exclusively on wild vertebrates and are only rarely encountered by the average citizen.