Heavy infestations of the two-spotted spider mite produce fine webbing which may cover the entire plant. Mites can be identified by shaking symptomatic leaves onto a sheet of white paper or by observing infected leaf areas with a hand lens. In hot dry weather, mites can cause plants to drop leaves in a few weeks. Fruit from severely infected plants are often unmarketable because defoliated plants tend to yield small, poor quality fruit. The eight-legged female mites are yellow to dark green with two to four dark dorsal spots .
Males are smaller with more pointed abdomens.
The tiny, spherical, eggs are laid on the undersides of leaves, often under the webbing produced by the mites. A six-legged, colorless larva that emerges resembles the nymph and adult, but is only the size of an egg. Both of the eight-legged nymphal stages look like the adult, but are smaller and not sexually mature. Under optimum conditions of high temperature and low humidity, the life cycle may be completed in 7 days. Females can lay 200 eggs.