He moves the slide and finds a male, then roams further and spots a larva. It resembles a medieval mace, with the spikes filed down to knobs. He also does research for the entomology department of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The creatures he was looking at are Demodex folliculorum, a near-microscopic species of mite found in the pits of human facial hair follicles. To get the sample, he had dragged the bent end of a bobby pin across his own forehead and wadded the evicted mites and some skin oil into a tiny blob.
Mites are tiny relatives of spiders.
Except for ticks, which are a type of mite, most mites are microscopic, or nearly so. They swarm all over the planet, as ubiquitous as bacteria, but are scarcely noticed unless they cause trouble, such as triggering asthma attacks or decimating honeybee colonies. There are 140,000 recognized species of mite, and these are probably no more than 5 percent of the total number of species. Mites are so supremely adapted and adaptable that they're here to stay as long as the world lasts, Desch says. He has published papers on mite specimens sent to him from all over the world by veterinarians, zoo personnel, wildlife biologists and scientific collectors, along with specimens he's garnered on his own.