#dailymitepic — Public Fediverse posts

I almost forgot it was #MiteMonday! From under one of my reliable dead logs just a few days ago, a mesostig with its prey, a tiny white springtail; a slug for scale; and a smaller, paler mesostig crossing paths with another springtail (which it did not try to eat).

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #springtails #Acari #Parasitiformes #Mesostigmata #Collembola #Poduromorpha

Gotta post something for the last #MiteMonday of the year. Here's some mesostigs (family Parasitidae or thereabouts?), predators of the undergrowth, making their way across alien landscapes of fungus and leaf litter on the underside of a dead log.

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites • #Acari #Parasitiformes #Mesostigmata

#MiteMonday: checked out my favourite dead logs, got more pictures of mesostigs preying on springtails!!

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites • #Acari #Parasitiformes #Mesostigmata #Parasitidae???

Thrilling moment today. I had flipped a log and was trying (with limited success) to get in-focus photos of this mesostigmatid mite when a tiny springtail ran directly into its path. To my surprise the mite seized it immediately and then, antenniform front legs aloft, hurried off looking for somewhere safe to consume its prize.

I knew, of course, that mesostigs like this were predatory; I'd just never witnessed the actual predating!

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites • #Acari #Parasitiformes #Mesostigmata

#MiteMonday: Astig explosion!!!

I had been putting off making a new tub of fruit fly medium and excelsior for the flightless fruit flies, and discovered the other day that the current tub had quite the population of astigmatid mites, feeding off the same stuff and emerging in great numbers to swarm the outside of the tub during the warmest part of the day. I was actually pretty excited about this, as I hadn't personally seen an infestation of these since childhood, long before I started doing smartphone macrophotography (as a matter of fact, long before smartphones existed, but anyway…), and posts about them on bug ID forums are, for some reason, virtually always low-res shaky videos. So I actually had a chance to get up-close photos!

Astigs, which branched off from oribatids, are a large and diverse group. Some common species, largely in the family Acaridae (like _Acarus siro_ and _Tyrophagus putrescentiae_), are found around the world as pests of stored products. They may be called "grain mites", "mold mites", "flour mites", "cheese mites", etc. They are harmless, though in huge numbers (e.g. in a bakery, barn, or grain silo) they can spoil food.

I had just been using a pantyhose sock thing to cover the fruit fly tub, but I went out and got surgical masks so I can make something less porous. I'll also make a fresh batch of fruit fly medium and toss the old tub. That should help keep the mites at a more manageable level.

I can't ID these precisely—you really need an expert with a key and a microscope—but they're likely Acaridae of some kind.

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites • #Acari #Acariformes #Acaridae

I decided to go back and see if I could find that beetle again and get more pictures, and I did!! While these beetles have potent chemical defenses in the form of caustic oil they secrete, this one was quite placid and let me get up close with the clip-on phone lenses, even crawling onto my hand at one point.

The mite mostly stayed under the beetle's chin, but occasionally ran around its head.

A passerby asked what I was looking at and I am afraid I was not the best or most observant conversationalist, as I was busy taking all the pictures I could get, but he seemed familiar with the concept of phoretic mites at least, and remarked that perhaps the mites gained some benefit or protection from the beetle's secretions.

This BugGuide observation <https://bugguide.net/node/view/31709> seems similar?

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mites #bugstodon #insects #beetles • #Acari #Parasitiformes #Mesostigmata #Coleoptera #Meloidae

The best thing I saw today. On and around Hawk Hill, the low hill near the café, several beautiful large _Meloe_ oil beetles were voraciously eating green vegetation. These were a prize all on their own and I took pictures of all of them. Later, at the café, I was going over the photos when I noticed one of them had something on its face!! A phoretic mesostigmatid mite!!!!!

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mites #bugstodon #insects #beetles • #Acari #Parasitiformes #Mesostigmata #Coleoptera #Meloidae

#Arachtober 19: one of my favourite finds this year, a hister beetle (family Histeridae) carrying several phoretic (hitchhiking) Uropodina mites attached via "anal pedicels", tough but stretchy stalks formed from special secretions from glands in…well, you can probably guess where. The mites are harmless to the beetle and use it to disperse to new habitats.

More on phoresy in Uropodina: https://doi.org/10.1080/24750263.2023.2288847 :OpenAccess:

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #phoresy #AnalPedicel • #Acari #Parasitiformes #Mesostigmata #Uropodina

#Arachtober 4: a representative from the other mite order, Parasitiformes! The parasitiform group Mesostigmata does contain some infamous parasites, but many—like this one here—are soil-dwelling predators.

(Acariformes and Parasitiformes have traditionally been grouped together under Acari, "mites", but in fact they are probably not each other's closest relatives and deserve to be treated as separate groups. Don't look too closely at higher mite classification or you will go mad.)

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites • #Acari #Parasitiformes #Mesostigmata