what kind of mites are these..?

saw these on the cricket leg leftovers around the cage.. are they bad?
I mean, I now learned my lesson and pick up the remains within 24 hours.. but will these guys harm my emp?









I didn't see any on her at all.. non on the joints or anything.





-JG

PS- those are my jeans... supermacro RULES!



-JG

Your emperor leaves remains? Mine must be pigs.

No idea on the mites, sorry.

every cricket she eats, she leaves one leg behind... maybe she's supersticious.



-JG

I always remove the two jumping legs when I feed crickets to make it easier for the scorp to catch and so that I don't have to look for them, because those big legs fall off every time.

As for the mites, I'm pretty sure they're the good ones (predatory). I tried breeding some a while back by putting some cricket carcasses into a small empty tank that I had filled with coco fibre. I got those little guys repeatedly (this is the time period when I had bad mites on a couple of my scorps) and so I investigated.

After submerging my scorps and trying out the vaseline technique, still mites remained on my scorp. So I put some of those into the temporary deli cups the scorps were in and they ate the rest of the mites on the scorpions body before dying out and falling to the floor.

So based on that (they look like the ones I got several times and don't look like bad mites at all) I'd say that they're fine.
The predatory mites will eat any decaying carcasses and bad mites.

Sweet. That's what I thought/wanted to hear..



-JG

Yep, those are the good ones. Nice pics, BTW. I'm half-tempted to sticky this thread for a reference.

What I think would be helpful (especially to the newbies like me) would be a list of some sort showing pictures of different mites, listing them under "bad" or "good," and how they arrive into your cage.
I did find one similar link that you had posted in a previous thread-
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/eycb/scorpions/Gennemis.htm

but it didn't exactly help me too much.
like I said, I think listing reasons for each mite's appearance would help out a great deal along side the pictures of the mites.

thank you for the picture compliments. I was tempted to get a petri dish and magnifying glass just to get a bigger picture, but didn't want to go into TOO much trouble just to get a close up haha.



-JG

I'd be happy to share my experiences with good and bad mites. I'm afraid I won't have any pictures but I'm sure I can get them from somewhere.

ScorpKid wrote:

What I think would be helpful (especially to the newbies like me) would be a list of some sort showing pictures of different mites, listing them under "bad" or "good," and how they arrive into your cage.
I did find one similar link that you had posted in a previous thread-
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/eycb/scorpions/Gennemis.htm

but it didn't exactly help me too much.
like I said, I think listing reasons for each mite's appearance would help out a great deal along side the pictures of the mites.

thank you for the picture compliments. I was tempted to get a petri dish and magnifying glass just to get a bigger picture, but didn't want to go into TOO much trouble just to get a close up haha.



-JG

I agree. Being new to scorps, a list of mites would be very useful

I've been removing the fecal matter and leftover cricket parts from the cage and have seen less of the mites (for the most part). I did notice that these mites can climb up the side of the glass tank.. Which means they can get out.. I have a room full of reptiles.. 16 snakes and a chameleon.. I'm hoping these guys won't harm the rest of my collection..?
I've also noticed that these guys eat ANYTHING that's dead and decaying.. ei a leaf from my pothos vine in the ank that was dying and had turned yellow. And there are also several baby crickets in the cage. I'll try to get some isopods in there to help out too.


-JG

The Phytoseiidae mites that I've encountered were either predatory or fed on plant matter (such as pollen) -- the behavior of these mites is similar enough to Phytoseiids that I wouldn't worry.

The bad mites on reptiles are the ones that gather in huge numbers and anchor themselves to the scales, much like grain mites anchor themselves to scorpions on intersegmental membranes.

good good

I've dealt with those mites before... and let me tell you.. they're a pain..
luckily I got rid of them quickly before they spread to the rest of my collection.


thank you for everything!





-JG