The next time you feed your dog Spot, you may be giving him more than just his dinner. They're usually smaller than most insects. In fact, mites can live on just about everything living and nonliving. They live on land, in water and ice, and in desert sands. F. They live in all types of streams, ponds, lakes, and seawater.
Mites are one of the oldest of all land animals.
Mite fossils have been found that date back nearly 400 million years. There are many kinds of mites. In fact, mites are second only to insects in the number of species alive on Earth today. Scientists have discovered and described about 48,200 different kinds of mites. They think this may be only 10 percent of the total that might exist.