Closeups of a not-so-domestic mite tritonymph

Rustem Uzbekov, Ayache Bouakaz, Michiel Postema

► To cite this version:

Rustem Uzbekov, Ayache Bouakaz, Michiel Postema. Closeups of a not-so-domestic mite tritonymph. Allergo Journal International, 2023, 32 (8), pp.337-339. 10.1007/s40629-023-00249-6. hal-04091720v2

HAL Id: hal-04091720

https://hal.science/hal-04091720v2

Submitted on 20 Nov 2023

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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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# Closeups of a not-so-domestic mite tritonymph

Rustem Uzbekov · Ayache Bouakaz · Michiel Postema

Received: 4 April 2023 / Accepted: 11 April 2023 / Published online: 8 May 2023
© The Author(s) 2023

In a recent issue of *Allergo Journal International*, K.-C. Bergmann published a mini-review on the biology of house dust mites and storage mites [1]. This excellently written article made us wonder about the potential fauna present in our imaging facilities.

As opposed to biolabs and chemical labs, imaging facilities contain a wealth of dust. Not only are cleaning rules for such facilities less strict, most, if not all,

physicists prefer that cleaning staff do not touch any equipment at these facilities.

The purpose of this study was to literally zoom in on a dust flake that had fallen onto a preparation slide.

The microscopic slide used for imaging had been prepared the same way as those prepared for scanning electron microscopy published in a prior study [2].

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

a

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

b

<caption>**Fig. 1** Ventral view of a tritonymph (a) and closeup up with fourth leg and genital papillae (b)</caption>

<footnote>R. Uzbekov
Department of Microscopy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tours, 10 Boulevard Tonnellé, 37000 Tours, France</footnote>

<footnote>A. Bouakaz · M. Postema (✉)
Inserm U1253, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tours, 10 Boulevard Tonnellé, 37000 Tours, France
michiel.postema@tuni.fi</footnote>

<footnote>M. Postema
LE STUDIUM Loire Valley Institute for Advanced Studies, 1 Rue Dupanloup, 45000 Orléans, France</footnote>

<footnote>School of Electrical and Information Engineering,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1 Jan
Smutslaan, 2001 Braamfontein, South Africa</footnote>

<footnote>BioMediTech, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology,
Tampere University, Korkeakoulunkatu 3, 33720 Tampere,
Finland</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2** Closeups of the head (a), the first and second pairs of legs (b), the posterior margin (c), and a pore in the posterior margin (d)</figcaption></figure>

The resulting scanning electron microscope image is shown in Fig. 1a.

By following identification keys [3, 4], we identified the mite to be in the tritonymph stage.

The genitalia were indeed absent. Instead, the closeup of the ventral area between the third leg pair shows two pairs of genital papillae [3], as demonstrated in Fig. 1b.

For illustrative purposes, we have added closeups of the head, the first and second pairs of legs, the posterior margin, and a pore in the posterior margin, all shown in Fig. 2.

In summary, Bergmann (2022) [1] may have inadvertently given imaging physicists an additional reason to avoid cleaning their facilities: to image most interesting microfauna.

**Funding** The scanning electron microscope data were obtained with the aid of the IBiSA Electron Microscopy Facility of the University of Tours and the University Hospital of Tours.

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa, grant no. 127 102, and by the Academy of Finland, grant no. 340 026, and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 665 790.

**Funding** Open access funding provided by Tampere University including Tampere University Hospital, Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TUNI).

**Conflict of interest** R. Uzbekov, A. Bouakaz, and M. Postema declare that they have no competing interests.

**Open Access** This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission.
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References

1. Bergmann K-C. Biology of house dust mites and storage mites. Allergo J Int. 2022;31:272-8.

2. Kudo N, Uzbekov R, Matsumoto R, Shimizu R-i, Carlson CS, Anderton N, Deroubaix A, Penny C, Poortinga AT, Rubin DM, Bouakaz A, Postema M. Asymmetric oscillations of endoskeletal antibubbles. Jpn J Appl Phys. 2020;59:SKKE2.

3. Colloff MJ, Spieksma FThM. Pictorial keys for the identification of domestic mites. Clin Exp Allergy. 1992;22:823-30.

4. Colloff MJ. Taxonomy and identification of dust mites. Allergy. 1998;53(Suppl. 48):7-12.