grain mite ramble

[Galapoheros]

I know hypopus stage grain mites haven't been proven to be damaging to inverts in a parasitic way, ...but are they? I still wonder about it. I wonder how much the possibility has been studied. I wonder if it has been studied at all, but surely it has, anybody know for sure ? I know that when I see a case now and then on pedes, it seems the mites stress the pedes out. With those pedes, I drop them in water, knock them out and scrape the mites off with a knife. The pede seems much better in a day with no more scratching and unusual running around during the day. Here is a pede that had them, you can still see 3 or 4 pearly white mites between the tergites there to the left. There were many but I didn't scrape these off, I fed less and introduced what I think are free roaming predatory mites, these don't often crawl on inverts but I've seen them grab grain mites off the substrate. I'm not a scientist so I can't even say 100% that the mites I'm talking about are even grain mites but the odds are very good, we've seen these before. You can see the dark, scabby looking outline of where all the mites used to be. Personally, I suspect this to be damage from the mites. It could be dirt, mite waste, etc., but it looks like some kind of damage to me. If you go back one tergite, you can see where there were more(there is only one or two left there). You can see the small darkened area there too between the tergites where there used to be a patch of mites. Well, this post really doesn't say anything does it... I'm just saying I'm suspicious of these annoying mites. I'm thinking they could be more harmful than has yet been discovered, maybe not but I can't shake the possibility out of my head. It would have been cool to have a microscope, take the molt of an invert with a case like this, turn it over and see if damage can be seen under the area. Well anyway, just something to look at I guess and maybe to consider.

 

[cacoseraph]

i think more it was stated that grain mites in hypopus stage aren't vampires.

i could see plenty of mechanisms for them to still have a negative affect

like... how exactly do they hold on to the exo? even if they don't use chemical means, purely physical suction could probably put micro cracks into exo. chemical means obviously would have possible negative affects on the exo

and beyond direct damage they can stress pedes out as the pedes try to get them off

 

[Galapoheros]

I considered those things too. It's just that it looks like there is damage, by "who knows how" and I'm a little frustrated with not knowing what it is exactly, I would be happy to see a professional really pick this apart, really take a look at it in a lab if it hasn't been done already. But, it's just a ramble, something to look at.

 

[cacoseraph]

i suspect i could find out quite a bit by googling grain mites... but i am not up to it right now. you have piqued my interest though... i might try in the next few days

 

[Galapoheros]

I've googled it pretty much but I kept giving up, kept reading the same thing over and over ..life cycle, food, eradication of them in pantries, hitchhiking on other inverts and even some mammals like birds, how they attach, stuff like that. I didn't really dig though like you seem to like to do, I get impatient. And I was wondering, "Has it even been looked into, would there be any financial motive for a professional to even look into damage they might cause to other inverts." Science has so much to do with curiosity though so, seems like it would have been studied. "Harmless", I'm just not feeling that. Haha, I know, I'm just a dude saying "well, it looks like something's going on there...." But, there could be, they may find something out later they didn't know about it. There I go again, you can say that about anything .

 

[zonbonzovi]

What about adding predators(at least temporarily) to the tank? Lacewings are supposed to be good at eradication on a small scale. I remember reading in another forum(allpetroaches?) about Hypoaspis miles working well as eradicators. If they are grain mites, why the heck are they attaching to your 'pedes? Could you maybe try placing some small grains somewhere in the tank to subvert their attention. Never had this problem myself, but I'd be very interested in what works, just in case...

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

The damage in your photo is something I've never seen from hypopus mites; maybe from scraping them off with a knife?

 

[Galapoheros]

What about adding predators(at least temporarily) to the tank? Lacewings are supposed to be good at eradication on a small scale. I remember reading in another forum(allpetroaches?) about Hypoaspis miles working well as eradicators. If they are grain mites, why the heck are they attaching to your 'pedes? Could you maybe try placing some small grains somewhere in the tank to subvert their attention. Never had this problem myself, but I'd be very interested in what works, just in case...

If you go read up on grain mites, you'll read about them going into a stage called the hypopus stage. Their body transforms and they attach themselves to animals. The theory is that the animal might take them to another food source, ..something like that, that's why they attach to inverts.

Hi Orin, did you mean "grain" mites and not hypoaspis?(HEY, you edited, hehe) I wasn't saying I suspected hypoaspis. I also mentioned in the post that I didn't scrape the grain mites off with a knife on this pede. I have seen it before on some pedes where the mites used to be too, but not so much on other's where the mites used to be so I just don't know. It could be dirt but I don't think so. I don't expect this thread to go anywhere necessarily, I just brought up the question out of curiosity. There are a lot of possibilities but, a definitive answer, who knows for sure.

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

Hi Orin, did you mean "grain" mites and not hypoaspis?(HEY, you edited, hehe) I wasn't saying I suspected hypoaspis. I also mentioned in the post that I didn't scrape the grain mites off with a knife on this pede.

I was taking a shortcut to saying the hypopus stage of the grain mites. I didn't realize you meant you never scraped them off this particular centipede.