A Mitey Longhorned Beetle (New Picture added)

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:40 am

I was out this weekend visiting a large Flea market with the family and this .5 inch beetle landed in my older daughters hair. She let out a loud scream

and made us all jump. When I told her (and showed her) that it also had mites, and that they were probably in her hair now, she really flipped out

. I placed the beetle in the cooler with the ice and took it home placed it in the freezer overnight and the mites never left the host. I wonder how they get through the exoskeleton

.

F/13
ISO100
1.3sec
Canon 100mm Macro with reversed 50mm
58 frames stacked with Helicon Focus

Added....A crop of the mites

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 3:26 pm

This is great, Doug!

An interesting subject, no apparent stacking artifacts, sharp where it needs to be while retaining some OOF background in the beetle's left antenna, and what looks like perfect color balance.

I might wish for a bit more light from the front, but that can be challenging with some lenses.

I don't know anything about mites on beetles, but I look forward to hearing from some of the other folks about that.

--Rik

dmillard · Post by **dmillard** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:13 pm

Great image! I think the mites are phoretic (hitching a ride), although I think they would be annoying passengers to carry.

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 11:57 pm

dmillard wrote:Great image! I think the mites are phoretic (hitching a ride), although I think they would be annoying passengers to carry.

Yes. Some mites of the order Astigmata form hypopi, which have the legs modified for this purpose.

Harold

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 11:58 am

Nice stacks... but Eeeeeeeeeuw!