Whoa, wasn’t the morning wonderful with the cloud cover? We were not very lucky in the rain department with only .02″. However, Alvord got .55″!
Often times on mosses and lichens you can find a mite or two. On this crustose lichen, I found a brown mite! These are known as Oribatids mites. Some call them armored mites or beetle mites. They are an important part of the decomposition processes!
So I tried to take a short glimpse into its life. Mites feed on a variety of foods depending on the species. Some of the foods include plants, fungi and other animals. This one seems to be feeding on the lichen. The mite was less than one millimeter in size!
The orange mites always catch my eye faster. 😉 Seeing an orange or red speck, I must take a closer look!
This orange mite had transportation!
The cool transportation for this orange mite was the Cixiid Planthopper (Melanoliarus aridus) (tentative ID)! It is only about four or five millimeters. If had not been for the brightly colored mite, I never would have noticed the planthopper. Funny, how when I stop to look at one thing, I find something equally as cool! 🙂
Keep looking!
The more you know, the more you see and the more you see, the more you know.
3 Comments
Those mites are cool. Never would have seen them. The first one just looks like a seed to me. Great pics.
Those mites are cool. Never would have seen them. The first one just looks like a seed to me. Great pics.
Tiny friends!!
That planthopper has amazing camouflage! And that orange mite was a beacon!