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1. kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Thursday, 07-Sep-2023 02:48:58 JST kho

   in reply to
   True velvet mites are small, velvety, usually bright red mites often seen creeping around on rocks, planters, tree trunks, or on the ground, especially after a rain. They are harmless to people.
   
   Like most other arachnids, the adults of true velvet mites have eight legs, which readily distinguishes them from insects, which have six legs. However, in their tiny, larval stage, velvet mites have six legs — but you will probably only see them attached to an insect or other arthropod.
   
   Also, true velvet mites, like other mites, have only one obvious body section; the mouthparts look like they’re stuck onto the overall egg-shaped body. In contrast, insects have three body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen) and spiders have two (cephalothorax and abdomen).
   
   True velvet mites and their relatives begin as eggs, which hatch into a form called a prelarva, which molts into successive larval, nymphal (protonymph, deutonymph, tritonymph), and adult forms. Several of these stages are inactive: the egg, the prelarva, the protonymph, and the tritonymph, the latter two being something like the pupae of insects. The stages that are active are the larval stage, where the mite is an external parasite on insects or arachnids, and the deutonymph and adult stages, which are free-living. The adults eat the eggs of insects, or insects. The adults mate and produce eggs for the next generation.