Síntomas de la enfermedad de Lyme por picaduras de garrapata

What does “garrapata” mean in Spanish?

A garrapata is a tick — the tiny parasite that latches onto skin or fur and can carry diseases like Lyme. The word is easy to lock in through a folk reading: garra (claw) + pata (paw), “a thing with claws on its paws.” Scholars actually trace it to a pre-Roman root (compare Basque kaparra), but the claw-paw image is the one that sticks — which is the whole job of a tick anyway.

A tick bite is una picadura de garrapata. The related verb garrapatear means to scrawl or scribble — jerky little marks that look like crawling bugs, also called garabatos. Knowing garra (claw/grit) pays off elsewhere too: tener garra means to have fighting spirit.