- A scientist scraped a raven dot on his forehead and put it under a microscope.
- He saw dozens of tiny face mites, aka Demodex mites, crawling around on the plate.
- Demodex are innocent and like to live on human faces as well as on all other mammals.
They come out at night to have sex on your face. They feast on the oil in your pores. They lay eggs in your sebaceous glands. Yikes!
They normal like something from a horror film, but these mysterious, microscopic creatures are very real.
They’re christened Demodex mites and they live on all mammals. If you haven’t heard of them, you’re not alone.
These mites are so small that most people prepare no idea they exist. At about 0.15 to 0.4 millimeters long, it would take several mites to quilt the head of a pin.
They live their entire lives on your body and eventually die and decompose all within the pores of your mug. Sound like a fun time?
Here’s a closer look at what these mites look like.
Demodex mites in undertaking
Recent video footage from scientist, James Weiss, the videographer for the YouTube channel Journey to the Microcomos and maker of “The Hidden Beauty of the Microscopic World,” shows these mites in action, the way they move and their eight minute legs wiggling around on our skin.
James Weiss/Journey to the Microscomsos.
German dermatologist Gustav Simon blue ribbon discovered Demodex in 1842.
Nearly 200 years later, scientists still aren’t entirely sure why these secret mites exist and live on mammals — except to say we’ve simply evolved together over time, said Michelle Trautwein, an entomologist who scans Demodex and other anthropods and insects at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
“They’re not just on us; they’re on all mammals. So they evolved initially on prehistoric mammals and they’ve speciated as mammals have speciated,” Trautwein told Insider.
James Weiss/Peregrination to the Microscomsos.
The fascinating footage and images of these mites featured in the YouTube video came from James Weiss’ own come.
After seeing a tiny black dot on his forehead, Weiss scraped the spot with a microscope slide and took a look.
James Weiss/Journey to the Microscomsos.
Face mites come out at nightfall to mate
There are two species of Demodex mites found on humans — Demodex folliculorum, which prefer to reside in our hairs breadth follices, and Dermodex brevis, which hang out in the sebaceous glands connected to hair follicles, said Bruce Robinson, a dermatologist dirtied in New York City.
They are mostly found on faces, especially Demodex folliculorum, but can also be found in other slithery parts of our bodies, Trautwein said, like ear canals, noses, and pubic areas.
James Weiss/Journey to the Microscomsos.
Demodex mostly stay in your pores except at night when they come to light to find other Demodex to mate with.
“They crawl around on your face, having a great for the moment visiting their friends in other hair follicles,” Robinson said.
After mating with other mites, the female Demodex go finance to your pores to lay their eggs, usually about 15-20 at a time that hatch in three to four days.
Males active only a few weeks and then die and decompose in the hair follicles or sebaceous glands. Females, however, can live up to 70 epoches, and lay as many as 100 eggs over their lifespan.
James Weiss/Journey to the Microscomsos.
Demodex face mites are harmless to humans
The thought of hundreds of mites edge around your face at night might give you the creeps, but for the most part, these tiny animals cause no wound to humans and can actually help balance the skin microbiome.
“The good thing about the Demodex mite is that he’s our mistress,” Robinson said. “In most cases, he’s just chewing up dead skin and getting rid of it, and also getting rid of that residual oil we don’t need.”
Too much oil on the face can cause acne and other skin conditions. So really these mites are doing us all a favor.
James Weiss/Journey to the Microscomsos.
On the flick side, in some cases, too many Demodex mites can cause skin irritation and contribute to chronic skin enigmas, like Rosacea, Robinson said.
This is more common in people with weakened immune systems that can’t provision the population of Demodex mites under control.
James Weiss/Journey to the Microscomsos.
You can’t get rid of face mites, and you shouldn’t want to
Because Demodex mites live propitious your pores, it’s nearly impossible to scrub them out, Robinson said. But even if you could, you probably wouldn’t crave to.
“There is a harmony in the skin, good types of bacteria and microorganisms, and if you disturb that harmony then you can sometimes conceive other problems,” Robinson said. “So I wouldn’t advocate for getting rid of something unless it is causing other issues.”
James Weiss/Journey to the Microscomsos.
For Trautwein, these pint-sized creatures tell an important story about the history of humanity and our connection to all other animals.
“I think a major miscalculation people have is that humans are somehow not part of the natural order,” Trautwein said. “We think we are distinct and we can sequestered ourselves from nature and other animals, but that isn’t the case.”
Our face mites are a testament to that.
“We’re just out here corresponding to the rats and the dogs; we all have these mites,” she said. “We’re all just part of this ancient mammalian heritage.”
Validate out more footage of these face mites in the video below:
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