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If a tick feeds on an infected white-footed mouse, the tick has a 90 percent chance of picking up the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, says Felicia Keesing, a Bard College disease ecologist.

The white-footed mouse, which has historically proliferated from the Tennessee Valley through the northern Atlantic Coast, has already expanded its northern limit into Québec, Hoffman said.

This arachnid picks up the bug while feeding on a white-footed mouse and delivers it to the next mammal it bites.

In the northeast, black-legged ticks latch onto small mammals like the white-footed mouse, which are notorious for transmitting the Lyme disease bacteria to the bugs.

For instance, he added, “A bear cub playing with a potato chip bag. A raccoon chewing a red Solo cup. A dead white-footed mouse, trapped in the neck of a beer bottle.”