Enlarged approxiamtely 1,500 times, this chigger looks like the latest sci-fi movie star. In life, chiggers are red, but not from dining on blood as many people think. The larval form of a type of mite, chiggers are barely visible to the naked eye. Courtesy Dr. W. Calvin Webourn and the Ohio State University Acarology Laboratory.
Chiggers first show up as annoying red bumps.
An itch begins. More hard red welts surface. From your feet and ankles upward, and especially at those tender locations your mother told not to scratch in public, a maddening itch takes hold. Savage scratching begins. Every welt becomes a persistent, exquisitely itching preoccupation that continues to irritate for days and even weeks.