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neville park · @nev
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: I was taking a photo of this red velvet mite (family Trombidiidae) when I noticed something on its butt. To my great surprise, it was another mite—a mesostigmatid, which are often hitchhikers on other arthropods. I haven't seen anything similar on trombidiids before, to my knowledge. Anyone know what's going on here?

#MiteMonday #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #trombidiidae #mesostigmata #phoresy

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
884 followers · 4378 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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Exciting Peak Anystid discovery today: just like the spiders in early spring had webs full of clover mites, the spiders now have webs full of whirligig mites!!

#dailyspiderpic #spiders #Theridiidae #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mites #Acari #anystidae #arachnids

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
884 followers · 4353 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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in other news, found bristly millipedes (Polyxenida) and snout mites (Bdellidae) on my building's garden wall and was, unfortunately, very weird about it just as neighbours were coming home

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #bdellidae #myriapoda #Diplopoda #polyxenida #millipedes

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
882 followers · 4284 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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The trick to getting whirligig mites (family Anystidae) to stay still: water! All that running must be thirsty work, because they will almost always stop to drink for a good long while.

#arthrobeauty #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mites #Acari #anystidae

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
881 followers · 4275 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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"Onward, noble steed!"

A long-legged velvet mite scrambling around the lakeside boardwalk ended up climbing onto this placid weevil several times.

#WeevilWednesday #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #erythraeidae #insects #beetles #Weevils #coleoptera #Curculionidae

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
880 followers · 4240 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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Dispatches from Peak Anystid season: they're hungry for aphids!!

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #anystidae #aphids #macro

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
876 followers · 4214 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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: It's crowded in the garden during Peak Anystid! Yesterday I saw a whirligig mite (family Anystidae) eating a small plant bug (family Miridae) when a second mite came along and had a bite. The first mite stopped feeding, but did keep one foot on the bug, as if to call dibs. It wasn't long before a third mite happened upon the kill and also helped itself to the bug.

#MiteMonday #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mitebehaviour #arachnids #mites #Acari #anystidae #bugs #insects #miridae

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
865 followers · 4126 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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Here are just a few of the whirligig mites (Anystidae) I saw today in the garden.

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mites #arachnids #Acari #anystidae #macro

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
865 followers · 4116 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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It's Peak Anystid and it seems every milkweed plant in the garden has at least half a dozen big plump ones running around on it! This one is eating an aphid.

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mites #arachnids #Acari #anystidae #macro

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
858 followers · 4047 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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Today in

I don't normally link Scientific Reports because it's a trash journal, but I just wanted to call your attention to the mite _Tyrophagus curvipenis_. nature.com/articles/s41598-023

Original paper (Fain & Fauvel 1993):
:ClosedAccess: doi.org/10.1080/01647959308683
:scihub: sci-hub.se/10.1080/01647959308

Unlike scientific names with "-pennis", which actually means "feather", T. curvipenis is called that because it has a curved penis (image 1, from the 1993 paper).

Intromittent organs (penises or aedeagi) are relatively rare in arachnids, Opiliones being the exception. However, astigmatid mites evolved penises. In this family, Acaridae, the male sits backwards on the female, clinging on with specialized suckers, and inserts his penis into a special opening on her back (image 2, from Walter & Proctor's _Mites: Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour_).

#taxonomy #Mitestodon #mites #Acari #acaridae

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
858 followers · 4038 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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Just in under the wire for : long-legged velvet mites (family Erythraeidae, probably _Balaustium_) feeding on pollen which I believe fell off a honey locust tree?

#MiteMonday #arthrobeauty #Mitestodon #mitebehaviour #arachnids #mites #Acari #erythraeidae #macro

Last updated 1 year ago
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Translating Soil Biodiversity · @soilbio_comm
26 followers · 8 posts · Server ecoevo.social
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We published 3 article translations in 🇫🇷 !

- En savoir plus sur les vers de terre grâce aux sciences participatives 🏙️
- Peut-on sauver la Bête en préservant la Belle ? 💅 🐻
- Acariens des mousses et du sol ou acariens cuirassiers : le monde fantastique des oribates 🐜(<- mite)

@romyzeiss @ElisabethBoenisch @MalteJochum @remybeugnon @EisenhauerLab @idiv @frontyoungminds

#French #soil #SoilBiodiversity #Earthworms #mites #Acari #belowground #scicomm

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
856 followers · 3959 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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Sidewalk mites (_Balaustium_) feeding on pollen. You can see their pollen-covered legs better in the second pic.

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #erythraeidae #macro

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
851 followers · 3887 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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Anystid season is upon us! Saw three running around on one milkweed plant. However we have not yet reached the carnivorous chaos that is PEAK ANYSTID, when big whirligig mites run riot throughout the garden.

I just love these little guys I'm not sorry

#arthrobeauty #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mites #Acari #anystidae #macro

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
849 followers · 3801 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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Whirligig mite (family Anystidae) eating pollen. The first pic may be technically better, but the second one is *truer*.

#MiteMonday #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mites #Acari #anystidae #macro

Last updated 1 year ago
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Frank Ashwood · @frankashwood
886 followers · 183 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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And finally, in another first for me, a predatory prostigmatid mite (Eupodidae sp.) running around on the water surface like that's no big thing! I certainly didn't know they could do that... did you?

#Mite #Acari #Mesofauna #Macrophotography #SoilBiodiversity

Last updated 1 year ago
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Frank Ashwood · @frankashwood
886 followers · 179 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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A predatory mite (family Bdellidae) doing what it does best - feeding on a springtail. Having a mite skewer your head with its pointed chelicerae isn't the nicest way to go, but fascinating to observe!

#SoilFauna #soilecology #Mesofauna #SoilBiodiversity #Macrophotography #Acari #Collembola #Mite #Springtail

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
836 followers · 3660 posts · Server flipping.rocks

New video: 1 minute of a clover mite rookery on a tree trunk! Adults feeling their way around by tapping their long legs; clusters of shiny dark-red eggs; the white husks of cast-off old molts.

These mites are so tiny (<1mm) that despite their vast numbers they easily pass unnoticed.

youtu.be/ehm_G14WEkI

#dailymitevid #Mitestodon #mites #Acari #tetranychidae #bryobiinae #bryobia

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
831 followers · 3604 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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went out for a walk even though it was cold and at the last tree just before i was about to go home i think i sAW ANYSTIDS EATING CLOVER MITE EGGS??!? will upload video but in meanwhile here's a picture

#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #anystidae #tetranychidae #bryobiinae

Last updated 1 year ago
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neville park · @nev
808 followers · 3312 posts · Server flipping.rocks
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This pair grappled hanging off the edge of a piece of bark, a scene fit for an action movie, if the stars were walking cushions. The fight ended when one already battle-scarred participant fell to the bark below and scrambled off.

#arthrobeauty #InverteFest #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #trombidiidae #macro

Last updated 2 years ago
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