One tick will bite you only once per life stage, because hard ticks have three life stages, larva, nymph, and adult, and each stage feeds only once on a host for several days until engorged, then drops off to molt to next stage or lay eggs, so a single tick will not bite you multiple times in quick succession like mosquitoes or fleas that feed briefly and bite repeatedly. When a hard tick attaches to you, it inserts barbed mouthparts and secretes cement to stay attached and feeds slowly for 3 to 10 days, taking one prolonged blood meal, then detaches and does not return to same host to bite again in same stage. However, if tick is disturbed or removed before fully engorged, it could potentially reattach and bite again nearby, but this is uncommon. Soft ticks may feed multiple times briefly. Nymphs, which are tiny poppy seed size and cause most Lyme disease, feed once as nymph, then molt to adult. So one tick equals one bite per stage, but you can be bitten by multiple ticks at same time if you were in heavily infested area, which is why thorough tick checks are important after outdoor activities. If you find multiple bite marks in line or cluster, it may be from multiple ticks, bed bugs, or other insects, not one tick biting repeatedly. So one tick bites once per stage, feeds for days, then leaves.
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