the.com/mite
the tiny squatter living rent-free on your face right now, eating dead skin
means A mite is any of countless tiny eight-legged arachnids related to ticks and spiders, many so small they're invisible to the naked eye, living everywhere from dust to skin to soil; the word also means a very small amount or a tiny creature in general.
from From Old English 'mite,' a name for a tiny biting insect, traceable to a Germanic root (compare Dutch 'mijt' and German 'Miete') that likely meant 'something cut small' or 'a cutter' — fittingly, a thing defined by its smallness. The sense of 'a tiny amount' grew from this, helped along by the 'widow's mite' of the Bible, a coin of almost no value.
- face guest
- Nearly all adults host face mites called Demodex
- no exit
- They lack anuses, storing waste their whole lives
- ancient lineage
- Among Earth's most diverse and oldest arachnids
- size
- Most are smaller than a grain of salt
- everywhere
- They thrive from deserts to polar ice
varroa destructor — parasite that kills honeybees, infests 80% of wild colonies worldwide
dust mite — dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, causes allergies in 10% of humans
chigger — trombiculidae larva found in americas and asia, causes intense itching