From yesterday: all species I've really only found on/immediately near those tall pine trees with red bark. The pretty yellow/gold/silver jumping spider _Eris floridana_; a tiny _Admestina_ jumping spider with a flattened, speckled body; and a mite from the family Erythracaridae (I'm calling it, I feel pretty sure).

I have found these even in rather bare, shabby, pissed-in areas that get a lot of human foot traffic, normally not a great place to find bugs!

Another kind of arachnid that seems to like the pine trees are opilionids, in the fall when they get big and mate.

#DailySpiderPic #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #spiders #JumpingSpiders #mites #Araneae #Salticidae #Acari #Acariformes #Erythracaridae

I also encountered something I'd never seen before. This spruce(?) tree had little red patches on it which turned out to be remarkable profusions of juvenile _Bryobia_ clover mites!

_Bryobia_ are in the spider mite family Tetranychidae, and I have seen photos of the silk-making spider mites, like gorse mites and two-spotted spider mites, aggregating like this on their webs. But the subfamily Bryobiinae does not make silk and until now I had never seen them swarm like this. They formed great piles staggering above the surface and as I watched one clump fell off entirely. I wonder if they are doing it to disperse, or what?

These mites are only active in cooler spring and fall periods and feed on soft greens like fresh grass (and, of course, clover), where I also saw some. Despite their huge numbers I have never seen them make noticeable cosmetic damage, though apparently it can happen. Honestly there are bigger problems in the world.

#Mitestodon #CloverMites #mites #arachnids #Acari #Tetranychidae #Bryobiinae

#MiteMonday: A delightful surprise at the pines at the very southeast corner of Trinity-Bellwoods! These spiky little anystoid mites, which I *suspect* are Erythracaridae, were racing up and down the trunks and hiding under the edges of the flakes of bark.

(These chunky pines—not white pine; red pine or jack pine or something like that—have bark with large flat flakes, unlike the more open and vertical furrows in the bark of willows, oak, etc. There are certain arachnids that seem to be particularly associated with these pines, like _Eris floridana_, _Tutelina harti_, and Opiliones when they are very big, and I guess the microhabitats formed by the bark may be why.)

#bugstodon #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #Acariformes #Anystoidea #Erythracaridae

The triumphant return of #MiteMonday!

Spotted this unusually reddish penthaleid mite on a decaying tree stump. Note the small pale #DorsalAnus on its back towards the rear of the abdomen.

#bugstodon #Mitestodon #mites #Acari #Acariformes #Penthaleidae

went to the park and flipped a log which was in icy ankle-deep slush but still yielded the usuals.

#bugstodon #insects #springtails #beetles #mites #Mitestodon #Acari #Parasitiformes #Mesostigmata #Coleoptera #Staphylinidae #Collembola #Entomobryomorpha #Hymenoptera

Still the depths of winter here. I have been having dreams about bugs. I recently had a dream about finding plump whirligig mites everywhere: some their usual orange-red, others greenish because they had just eaten something green…I miss the mites.

Here are some whirligig mites I found a couple of years ago on a rock down by the lake, fighting over a dead midge. #iNaturalist observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/225382565  

#MiteMonday #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acariformes #Anystidae

Been a long time since I posted anything for #MiteMonday, but I was going through my camera and found this one I don't think I've shared before! Just a good old _Allothrombium_ red velvet mite.

#Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #Acariformes #Prostigmata #Trombidiidae

#MiteMonday: a tiny _Podocinum_ mite found under a rock. Its extremely thin elongated front legs have forked hairs at the end, and it seems to use these legs like antennae to navigate.

Much better pictures here: https://bugguide.net/node/view/514391

#Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #Parasitiformes #Mesostigmata #Podocinidae