OzReps

Understanding the snake mite life cycle

 

Snake mites can be introduced in a number of ways and they spread fast once established.
To remove them successfully, it is important to understand them and their life cycle.

They have a 30 day life cycle:
Egg – about 30 hours to hatch
Larvea – 18hrs
Protonymph- 3 days
Deuteronymph- 24hrs
Adult- 10 days

The time spent in the protonymph stage refers to those that find a host soon after molt.
Unfed protonymphs can live 15 to 19 days before dying of starvation.
A gravid female leaves her reptilian host and finds a dark, moist crevice where she lays eggs.
Each egg hatches into a softbodied larva, which does not move after leaving the egg. It is usually safe from dying of dehydration in the crevice.
After molting into the protonymph stage, the mite continues to stay in the humid crevice until its exoskeleton becomes sclerotized, which minimizes the chance of death from dehydration when the protonymph moves to dryer areas.
Then it begins wandering around the cage at random. If the protonymph encounters a host, it climbs aboard, conceals itself under a scale, and begins feeding.
When full of blood, the protonymph drops off the host, finds a dark, moist crevice, and molts into the
deuteronymph stage.
The deuteronymph is active but usually remains in the crevice until the final molt into the adult stage. The opposite sexes usually pair off in either the late proteronymphor deuteronymph stage. Mating takes place shortly after the mites reach adulthood.
The adult wanders randomly around the cage until it encounters a host.
Then it climbs on the host, sucks blood until engorged, and drops off.
Males seek unmated females, and females seek crevices to lay eggs.
Females lay 60-80 eggs, feeding two or three times at intervals of one to two weeks.
Whenever a mite encounters a barrier, it climbs instead of going around the barrier.
This leads mites to climb up the sides of the water dish, any other cage furnishings, and the walls.
Any mite that passes through an opening and leaves the cage is likely to fall to the floor.
There it continues to wander randomly until it either dies or enters another cage and finds a host. This wandering will rapidly infest every cage in the area.
Snake mites have rather rigid behaviour patterns. If they encounter a barrier or an incline, they climb.
They are attracted toward moist conditions and toward dark areas.
If cold, they are attracted toward warmth until a threshold is reached, when they try to move toward a cooler area.
They are attracted by the smell of a host and tend to stop moving when a contact area on the back touches something, like the underside of a snake's scale.

The groove along a snake's lower jaw and around its eye make excellent attachment points for a mite, as these areas are adequately warm, moist, and narrow enough to trigger the contact stimulus.
A snake mite can complete its entire life cycle in the groove around a snake's eye.
One of the natural dangers to a snake mite is its host shedding its skin.
The snake crawls away leaving the mite behind in the shed skin.
However, the snake is rapidly reinfested in the confines of a cage.
Drowning is another natural danger to a snake mite. Snake mites are not
able to swim and will eventually drown in water.
In a bath, they are able to migrate along a snake's body to the head, which is usually out of water, and at least some of the mites survive. However, placing a clean snake cage on legs in a shallow pan of water will prevent mites from just walking into the cage.
Heat and dehydration are related dangers. Mite Eggs are significantly less likely to hatch successfully in dry conditions than in humid conditions.
Snake mites are killed within a few minutes at a temperature of 55 C (=
131 F).

~Camin, Joseph H.~ 1953 Observations on the life history and sensory behaviour of the snake mite.

Creepy crawly insect Links
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/links.html
http://www.ent.iastate.edu/List/

 

Source: http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5354