Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Original title: "Chicken pecking concrete is eating soil?" After reading, I can't look at the cement."

I don't know if you have noticed a phenomenon: chickens and sparrows sometimes peck on the concrete floor. But there didn't seem to be anything on the cement. What were they eating? Was it dirt?

(Photo credit: pexels) Birds aren't so stupid. They may be pecking at a small, red-colored Chinese animal with eight claws, the cement mite.

Don't "chicken" move. Have you ever noticed that after outdoor activities in spring and summer, light-colored clothes sometimes have some red dots inexplicably? Is that the blood you got bitten by mosquitoes? Is that the mark of the Chosen One? Not really. These little red dots could have come from cement mites that you squashed.

Cement mites are arthropods of the genus Balaustium, which grow lively and like to be lively. (Photo credit: see watermark) Cement mites are members of the Erythraeidae family. Red mites are distributed all over the world, of which cement mites, that is, multilocular red mites (Balaustium) species number the most.

Cement mites can grow up to 2 mm long, they are mostly bright red, and they also exude bright red insect juice: when frightened, their backs exude red liquid, which may have warning and waterproof effects.

In cities, concrete mites like to crash on concrete buildings or concrete floors. If you look closely, you'll see concrete walls and pavements filled with these bright red bugs.

But in places where vegetation is abundant, they actually prefer to stay in trees.

Don't worry, they don't eat people.

Unlike another common species of red mite, chigger mite, which we will talk about below, cement mites are free all their lives and do not need any "master." These "little red guys" live by hunting and gathering themselves, which is different from other species of red mite family, more like the survival mode of early wild humans.

They hunt because they do eat meat, but other small animals, such as mites, insects and their eggs. Cement mites are natural enemies of many plant pests, which is why they like to lie on trees where there is vegetation, especially fruit trees.

Also because of the orchard-falling, eight-legged predator's nature, some researchers hope to cultivate cement mites as biological pest control species to help humans eliminate agricultural pests.

The cement mites are "gatherers" because they can also eat pollen, so you can run into them on flowers. A 2012 study at Germany's Martin Luther Harlewittenberg University found that cement mites generally eat pollen in the spring and begin eating "meat" in the summer.

Suspected cement mites blow up the street (Photo credit: Zaid El-Hoiydi) Although cement mites breed in wet places, they also like the sun and will come out for a walk when the sun is hot. They also gather in large numbers in spring and then disperse rapidly, similar to flash mobs. Now researchers don't know what's behind this phenomenon.

However, BL Cadogan and JE Laing, researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada, have observed that 7-20 concrete mites gather together to dance "square dance" on about 3.5 square centimeters of ground, which they believe may be a "ritual" of group mating.

Cement mites are pointed at (Credit: John M. Regan) Then again, if you see another red bug that's passionate about you and pulls you, watch out. That little red bug is not friendly.

In fact, the common bright red mites we see outdoors, in addition to cement mites, there is a species called chigger mites. These two animals look similar and have the same color scheme, but their habits are very different.

Chigger mites belong to Trombiculid family. They are also called sand lice, sand fleas and chigger in China. Chigger mites are a large family with many different species, among which a few do not like meat, but like to drink human skin soup villains. And the favorite to drink human skin soup is Trombicular alfreddugesi.

Chigger mites are half the size of cement mites and grow to about 1 mm long and 8 legs as adults.

This small animal, which has grown into a biological eye chart, cannot be discovered without careful observation. But because they're so close together, we can see a little red dot in the wild, and that's them.

Chigger mites differ from many mites in what they eat from childhood to adulthood. As children they eat humans and animals.

The chigger mites climb onto plants and hook up with passers-by. Chigger mites are more "loyal," stinging only one owner for a lifetime.

When they catch a passerby, they take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to feast. Like lice, they like to hide in the folds of their skin and then start eating people, a process that usually lasts a few days.

It sounds scary, but chigger mites don't burrow into your skin because their mouthparts are too short to penetrate your body, and they don't suck blood. They hang on to the surface of a passerby, find hair follicles, inject digestive fluids into the surface of the skin with their mouthparts, liquefy the skin, and drink some of your liquefied dead skin milk tea.

During this process, the human skin has a defensive response, which is hardening, forming a "crater" formed by necrotic skin-stylostome. But this doesn't work for chigger mites, which can instead use the reinforcement as a straw.

Stem opening caused by chigger mite bite (image credit: wikipedia) you won't feel anything different during the early stages of chigger feeding. After they are full, you will feel wrong and your skin will be red and itchy for several days.

But you can't find them at this point, because the full chigger mites turn yellow and fall to the ground, then enter the second stage of life-the nymph.

As the nymph develops into an adult, chigger mites change their diet: they grow up to eat eggs of small arthropods and insects, and occasionally pollen, but no longer eat people.

Chigger mites do not pick hosts. Humans and other mammals, birds and reptiles can be infected by chigger mites. Some chigger mites also transmit disease, such as chigger disease, which was once endemic in Kawa-sha, Japan, caused by Trombidium holosericeau. Don't mess with wild animals because of this reason.

In fact, some lizards have so-called mite pockets. Mite pockets are usually in the lizard's crunchy forelimb nests, because that moist, warm, dark fold is a favorite of chigger mites.

Lizard are not red, chigger mites are red, so when lizards walk, you will see their "arms" flashing "red light," which is a sign that lizards are infested with chigger mites. However, the presence of mite pockets has led some researchers to suspect that chigger mites may have some benefit for lizards.

Similar to cement mites, chigger mites are most active in spring. In the wild where dense vegetation activities, it is best to protect your wrists and ankles, spray a little insect repellent, to avoid being magic small animals "plug-in" ah.

In addition to the two bright red bugs above, the red-colored octopuses you see in the wild may also be Trombidiidae, which hide in rotting leaves and eat other bugs, Bryobia, which loves to eat lawns, or Anystis, which is a super predator mite. However, the velvet mite is relatively large, with a body length of half a centimeter. The mossy mite is brownish red in color, while the red mite is orange yellow. Cement mites (upper right) look more like red rice grains with long legs. (Image source: see watermark)

The air is hot.

Little red guy reads chicken âTM ¥

References:

https://docs.qq.com/doc/DVEtLaGNyd2t2SkRW

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Bringing Science Home (ID: steamforkids), written by Qi Jun

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.