Mites? Or something else?

[Shejackal]

Mites? Or something else? (now with pictures)

I've had my African Giant Millipede for about a month now. This is the first I've ever had and I seem to be running into some problems getting help on simple things. When I got her she had a couple of small bumps that I thought were mites. However during a routine tank clean up I noticed she had a whole lot more of these little things so I looked up millipede mites. These look NOTHING like the mites the internet has supplied pictures of so now I"m a little concerned.

I'm going to try and get pictures tommorow....

Basicly they're these little brown "bump" looking things all over her, mostly around the legs. If scraped they come up with a fair amount of effort and are revealed to have little legs. They seem sort of mite-like but are very hard and have a death grip on my poor millipede. She doesn't seem to notice them yet but she hasn't been nearly as active as she was at the beginning. I removed most of the ones that were on her back but she wanted nothing to do with me trying to get the ones off from around her legs, completely cleaned out her tank and replaced the substrate. I checked on her again after about three hours and all of the ones I had removed seemed to have come back and brought friends. They don't seem to be moving when I examine her, though if you scrap one off they sort of flail a bit. They're about the size of poppy seeds maybe a little smaller.

I'm more concerned that they are harmful to her. Are they? If so, how to I get rid of them? If not, up until what point are they okay?

Also, quick feeding question....my millipede is a bottomless pit, no matter what I put in there it's gone in about 5 minutes....do millipedes get obese? How much is to much?

Thanks in Advance ^^

EDIT: Pictures (sorry for the poor quality but you can clearly see a little cluster on the first one, and the dots around the legs on the second one) of these little things. They really can't be seen moving but everything I brush them off they come back, and they do move around so I'm assuming that it's a very slow movement) note: they are not white, they are brown, that's the flash

Picture 1

Picture 2

I've been routinely brushing them off with a stiff painbrush but they don't really "brush off" they more dislodge then immediatly stick back so that actually removing them is a very time consuming affair. My millipede tolerates it for about ten minutes before she clearly wants me to stop and leave her alone. What are these things? and more importantly...are they harmful?

 

[Galapoheros]

Do they look like the mites in this thread?
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=131527
If you do a "search" on this site, you'll find a bunch of info.

 

[Shejackal]

same shape, but these aren't white, they're brown and the legs (which are teeeeny tiny) are a lighter color (my eyes have trouble determining color on things this small..but they're rather bright...maybe red?.

I searched around the forum for pictures but I didn't see anything mite related that looked exactly like them...

 

[Galapoheros]

Hmmm:? Doesn't sound like something "I've" seen, hope to see some pics.

 

[kupo969]

If you can see them moving quite fast and are brown, they are predatory mites. The harmless kind move very slow and are white.

 

[Shejackal]

how about very very slow (don't really move at all until you dislodge them, then it's just sort of a sort of pathedic flailing motion before they reattach) and brown?

I'm going to try and get pics for tomorrow (I have no lights ATM, blown fuse)

 

[Shejackal]

alright, pics have been added...I know they're not the best quality but it does get a good amount of detail as to what they look like...

 

[Shejackal]

Now I'm very worried, I think that she has stopped passing feces, not to mention that despite me trying to remove these little "things" whatever the hell they are she hasn't released any sort of fluid (something she did without my doing anything when I first got her) she's quite limp (though still alive, all legs moving) as well.....these little "things" seem to just be draining her completely....

I tried taking her to a vet, but they laughed at me....

help/info would be nice....

 

[Cory Loomis]

Sorry about your millipede. I really like AGB's and so do the kids at school. From your pics, you appear to have a bad infestation of parasitic mites that are, in fact, draining the life out of your AGB. Are your cleaner mites (the fast-moving large ones) still present? That would be a good sign.

To clean off mites, I have held animals under a gently running faucet so that mites wash away when dislodged. Another technique I have used is a Q-tip impregnated with just enough Vasoline to cause the mites to stick to it when you dislodge them. Neither technique will eliminate the mites, but one or both might keep your millipede alive long enough for you to get some predator mites that will feed on the little buggers. Good luck.

 

[Galapoheros]

Sorry to keep hacking the grain mite thing but that's what they look like to me. I don't know that they are grain mites, just my opinion. Dormant hypopus stage juveniles look very different than the adults. Do you see fatter, creamy white ones slowly walking around on veg matter in it's cage? If so, those are the adults. They can look to be a different color sometimes, that depends on what the mites are eating, it's just the food inside them you are looking at. If they've been eating carrots, they can look orange ..lettuce, they can look green. I would say that you need to get natural predators in there if you try it again. The predators are very common in the soil. If you went outside and grabbed some dead leaves off the ground from a natural spot, you might pick some good mites up. I've heard millis love leaves anyway. Some people worry about picking up other bad things but ime, I haven't had problems with that so far and it's worth that lesser risk if you pick up predatory mites that will get rid of those bad mites, to me anyway. After all, these animals naturally spend life living in the leaves exposed to everything there all the time. The predators just keep reproducing in my Hisser cage were I put leaves so I don't worry about them dying off. I bought pred mites once from a co. but all I saw were grain mites the co. put in there to feed the pred mites. I didn't see any pred mites, sent the container back and they sent my money back too. That wasn't their policy so that surprised me a little.
http://www.ento.psu.edu/Extension/fa...lour_mites.htm

"At some time during the juvenile period, grain mites may change into a stage known as the hypopus. During this unique stage, the body wall hardens and suckers appear on the underside. These suckers allow the mite to attach to insects and other animals for dispersal. The eggs and especially the hypopuses appear to be more tolerant of insecticides than other juveniles or adults; and they may be the primary stage responsible for resurgences in mite populations after chemical control appeared to have been successful."

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

If you look at them you'll notice they're on the flat surface of the segments, not at the joints so they're not sucking any life out of your millipede. Actual parasitic mites are found on thin areas of the joints, they don't search out the thickest, most impenetrable areas of the exoskeleton to feed. Those look different from common grain mites but are likely the hypopus stage of a different free living mite. Of course they aren't harming your millipede but that doesn't mean your animal isn't dying from the conditions that spawned the hypopus stage, poor shipping, or subsequent husbandry stress. Don't worry about the mites just yet as they aren't harming your animal. Stressing a sick, recently imported animal by trying to remove them may put it over the edge.