Sunday, March 8, 2009

Predatory Mites and Spider Mites

I took some pictures of the mites that I work with last wednesday, here's the album:

Mites, March 2009


The big orange teardroppy ones are the predatory mites, T. pyri, the hairier, yellower ones with black spots are the spider mites that they eat, I don't know the name of the species. They are very small. For a comparison, look at the period on the period key on your keyboard. They are about 1/4 the size of that or less. They still hunt and eat and have reproductive behaviors and all that though. Pretty neat, I think. They also know how to flee a paintbrush tip right after they hatch out of the egg.

1 comment:

Kate said...

Awesome! Suddenly I feel really itchy...