Mites

[Olympusman]

Trying to finish off my dead insects from the summer, I got out a small beetle that had been in a parts box I'd forgotten about. The beetle had been for over a year and when I surveyed it under a 4X objective I found a mite working the carcass.


Here it is under the 10X.



I thought I would isolate the mite by rinsing the beetle in alcohol, letting the alcohol settle down in the beaker and transfer the sediment to a slide using an eyedropper. I turned up several more of the same mite in different sizes that I had not spotted on my survey.



Stack of 25 in Zerene Stacker.

But I also found this amazing mite:



Stack of 97 in Zerene Stacker.

I apologize for the poor image quality. I have been toplighting insects fro about three weeks with a dual gooseneck illuminator and my transmitted light technique has gotten a bit sloppy. I shot both stacks with the condenser diaphragm WIDE OPEN!

Duh!

I'm going to try bathing more insects in alcohol, but then I'll centrifuge the alcohol to concentrate the mites.

[rjlittlefield]

Interesting situation, with mites scavenging the old carcass. I'm used to seeing skin beetle larvae doing this job, but maybe I never looked closely enough to see mites too.

About that last one, are you sure that's really a mite? It looks awfully much like the last two segments of an insect tarsus, separated from the rest of the leg.

--Rik

[Olympusman]

Rik,
Not sure what it is, but it is very small.