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When a tick attaches to a host, it embeds its mouth parts, including a barbed protuberance called a hypostome, and releases a cement-like substance to help it hold on, says Kirby C. Stafford, Connecticut’s state entomologist.

Some of the devices—such as the Tick Nipper, a pliers-like device from Joslyn Designs Inc., Mahopac, N.Y.—reach under the tick and clamp the base of the hypostome so you can pull up to remove it.

Two devices, the Trix Tick Lasso, made by Sweden’s Swereco Group AB, and the O’Tom Tick Twister, from France’s H3D, are designed to be used with a twisting motion, on the theory that rotation dislodges the barbs on the hypostome.

In the latter the single pair of antennae springing up from each side of the camerostome or hypostome or upper lip-lobe are seen.