Van Smith, age 14, of Camden, Ark., for his question:

CAN TICKS SURVIVE WITHOUT ANIMALS?

While walking across an open field or through the woods, you might pick up a wood tick on your leg. This pest, you will discover, can really anchor himself deeply into your flesh with his strong, toothed beak. If you pull the tick off, you'll risk leaving part of the creature in your skin and this may cause a festering sore. You can remove him easily by loosening him with a drop of gasoline or kerosene.

Ticks are not insects but are small animals. Oval in shape, they are parasites that have to live on other animals.

Ticks and mites look very much alike and are actually related. Mites, however, can feed on plant tissue and juices as well as on oth.er plant products. But the tick must have animal fluids in order to survive.

While the body of a tick seems to be in one piece, there is a groove between the stomach and the front. On the movable front part is the head which includes the strong beak and sharp teeth through which the tick sucks blood from his victim. The teeth, by the way, are bent backward which helps the parasite keep a tight grip on his host's skin.

The tick has eight legs which stick out at the side.

A new life cycle starts when the mother tick lays up to 5,000 eggs at one time among the dead leaves on the ground. From each egg comes a flat, six-legged larva. Some jump on passing animals from the grass or shrubs while most die. As the young tick gorges on his host's blood, his body swells up. He then stops eating for a period of time and starts to shed his outer covering. Once this has been achieved, he stops being a larva and is magically an eight-legged nymph. One more molting follows, at which time the nymph becomes an adult.

With some types of ticks, the larvae and nymphs drop to the ground where they go through their form changes.

Many different types of ticks are given special names because they seem to bother only certain types of animals. For example, there are chicken, cattle, dog and sheep ticks. Many of these which attack farm animals also bother humans.

In addition to farm animals, ticks can also annoy and live on wild animals.

Rocky Mountain spotted fever is often transmitted to man by the spotted-fever tick. This disease has been found along the Atlantic Coast area as well as in the region of the Rocky Mountains. A few human deaths are reported from this disease each year.

One of the most pesky members of the tick family is the common English sheep tick that often infests cattle and dogs.    It is found in a number of areas in North America.