Itty Bitty Mite Facts #1

Okay, I admit it. I'm a little bit obsessed with mites. I wrote about them in the very long post, "The Itch List" (summer 2011), but I continue to think about mites a lot, whereas I don't think about mosquitoes and poison ivy all of the time. Mites just fascinate me. We and all of our stuff are just crawling with the little buggers, and there's not much we can do about it.

But, in keeping with the size of my subject, I'm trying to keep this post extremely short. So, with no further ado, here's Mite Fact #1. Yes, there will be more. If the subject of dust (or other types of) mites makes you squeamish, it will be easy to avoid these posts because they'll all have the words "Mite Facts" in the title.

"We may not realize it, but each one of us is a walking ecosystem. Minuscule, eight-legged Demodex mites nestle head down inside the follicles of the eyelashes, feasting unnoticed on skin cells. Microscopic bacteria live on the tongue, teeth, and skin and in the intestine*. Dormant viruses like herpes simplex may loiter for years inside nerve cells."   

--from discovermagazine.com