Mites - simplified

[The Snark]

Mites are spiders. But as a rule, much hardier and durable than all Araneae commonly collected and kept as specimens.

Can you eradicate mites and not endanger your animals? Ordinarily, NO. If the mite species is non parasitic, just opportunistic, you can draw them away from your specimens by providing a more ideal habitat and food source. If you aren't an expert at mite identification this will require trial and error.

Can you get rid of mites? Yes. By establishing an environment hostile to their reproduction. Again, this usually involves trial and error.

 

[ChaniLB520]

Mites are spiders. But as a rule, much hardier and durable than all Araneae commonly collected and kept as specimens.

Can you eradicate mites and not endanger your animals? Ordinarily, NO. If the mite species is non parasitic, just opportunistic, you can draw them away from your specimens by providing a more ideal habitat and food source. If you aren't an expert at mite identification this will require trial and error.

Can you get rid of mites? Yes. By establishing an environment hostile to their reproduction. Again, this usually involves trial and error.

Nice simple summary, but mites are not spiders. They are Arachnids, yes, but they fall into Orders Acariformes and Parasitiformes, not Order Araneae.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Spider Mites: Got Pests? : Board of Pesticides Control: Maine DACF

Arachnids yes.

Nice simple summary, but mites are not spiders. They are Arachnids, yes, but they fall into Orders Acariformes and Parasitiformes, not Order Araneae.

What keeps them from being considered spiders the lack of predation or the fact they are parasites?8 legs and arachnids.

 

[DaveM]

Some mites are nasty pests (e.g. spider mites and chiggers), while some are beneficial from our perspective, and most of them are simply unknown to us.

It's really just the same as with people. I'm not going to name any nasty human pests, but we know they are among us. To the beneficial people, thank you. To the unknown people: if you make yourself known, please try to fall into the beneficial category. We have too many nasty pests already.

 

[The Snark]

Nice simple summary, but mites are not spiders. They are Arachnids, yes, but they fall into Orders Acariformes and Parasitiformes, not Order Araneae.

Over the past 18 years here on AB, at a very rough guess, several hundred people have posted where they were unable to differentiate Arachnida, Tetrapulmonata, Araneae, Araneomorpha, the various Families, Genera and Species.
The only word which is universal in all those references is the word Spider. Thus it's use.
But thanks for the addition to my post. For some it will help to clarify. I wanted to be as concise as possible.

 

[DaveM]

I wanted to be as concise as possible.

Are you turning over a new leaf? ...to find mites I mean, of course

 

[The Snark]

Are you turning over to new leaf?

My superfluous persiflage and extraneous badinage has gone, for the most part, unread, and if read, a good chance to not be comprehended.
My darling attorney was kind and brutal enough to recently inform me that with the average English language reader having a full comprehension vocabulary of less than 30,000 words, with my vocabulary up around 100,000 a solid one third or more of what I write is a wasted effort.
To Wit, "Darling, over half the words you type I would avoid using in court as the jury would only be lost and confused."

 

[DaveM]

My superfluous persiflage and extraneous badinage has gone, for the most part, unread, and if read, a good chance to not be comprehended.
My darling attorney was kind and brutal enough to recently inform me that with the average English language reader having a full comprehension vocabulary of less than 30,000 words, with my vocabulary up around 100,000 a solid one third or more of what I write is a wasted effort.
To Wit, "Darling, over half the words you type I would avoid using in court as the jury would only be lost and confused."

I and the dust mites sitting here with me are in full agreement that a compilation of your posts will be employed to help my kids prepare for standardized tests. The booklice are raising an objection though that you're too advanced for GREs, MCATs, LSATs, etc. We need not listen to any lousy booklice though, as they're not not mites (and hence irrelevant in this thread), Psocopeterans (insects), not even arachnids, so just ignore them, and keep up the great work!

 

[ChaniLB520]

Spider Mites: Got Pests? : Board of Pesticides Control: Maine DACF

Arachnids yes.

What keeps them from being considered spiders the lack of predation or the fact they are parasites?8 legs and arachnids.

Over the past 18 years here on AB, at a very rough guess, several hundred people have posted where they were unable to differentiate Arachnida, Tetrapulmonata, Araneae, Araneomorpha, the various Families, Genera and Species.
The only word which is universal in all those references is the word Spider. Thus it's use.
But thanks for the addition to my post. For some it will help to clarify. I wanted to be as concise as possible.

The taxonomic groupings are primarily differentiated today through genetic differences indicating evolutionary relatedness. To simplify (following in @The Snark's footsteps ) mites within their own Orders are more closely related to each other within their order, genetically (based on DNA analysis), than they are to any spider (or member of another Taxonomic Order within Class Arachnida).

But, yes, taxonomy is constantly in flux as we do more genetic studies (thus the constant reclassification of tarantula species) - mites used to be classified in Order Acari but are now placed into two orders (I'm glad I checked on that before I posted my reply because I was used to them being in Acari! - I am an entomologist, but I teach now so am not always checking up on these changes in real time). Since the initial post referenced Araneae and that is currently not the Taxonomic Order that mites are placed in, I decided to clarify.

Thanks for the discussion!

 

[The Snark]

@ChaniLB520 A bio student at Cal Tech once gave an oral dissertation at some event hosted by CT and MIT with a number of local colleges and universities represented. IE wall to wall stuffed shirts. The topic was taxonomy and he drew an analogy to the Pasadena freeway that originated as a horse drawn wagon road winding through the hills to connect the population centers of the collection of communities along the base of San Gabriel mountains with the greater Los Angeles area.
To get some idea of this road turned into a freeway, it has one curve with a posted speed limit of 25 MPH, tenuous bridges, concrete abutments inches from high speed traffic, hairpin off ramps with 5 MPH speed limits taking you back where you came from and so on. By modern day standards the entire road would be condemned.

The student delivered the oral in George Carlin-esque voice and presentation that ultimately had even the most jaded profs rolling in the aisles. Long story short he summed it up as Taxonomy is there, it works in a fashion, and were stuck with it. But unfortunately it isn't a single road but has become a part of a massive grid with numerous side roads, communities that didn't even exist when it was laid down and so on.
Relayed to me was his opening remark, "In the beginning there was animal, vegetable, and mineral, and it was good."

So much for modern day taxonomy.