show me some mites, in pictures, please :)

I personally don't want any kind of insect in my BP enclosures. Whether or not they're directly beneficial, neutral, or harmful, they can all be vectors in carrying disease and parasites.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

the term "symbiotic" is defined as a relationship between two species that is mutually benificient. meaning both sides benefit from it. you have more bacteria in your guts than you have human body cells in your whole body. without them, you would be unable to digest much of what you eat; you would be on a very special diet or you would die.

when only one species has a benefit, it is called neutral.

it is parasitic only when one species has a benefit at the cost of another species, causing harm to another species.

the definitions of "symbiosis" and "parasitical relationship" are mutually exclusive. If one is true, the other cannot be true, and vice versa.

i guess im just a hippie and like nature too much. but then, in aquaristics: knock out the bacteria and make your aquarium sterile, and all fish die within a few days. For reptiles, these may be hypothetical ponderings, in aquaristics stuff like this is damn real.

Great thread. I agree, parasites by definition harm their host in some way. While some people might work to keep their enclosure completely bug free, it's nice to know what you are dealing with, since the way in which you deal with them is different, as is the urgency.

Snakes naturally do have a number of symbiotic organisms that they develop. This article by Melissa Kaplan sums it up nicely. Essentially, the snake's environment and stress level has everything to do with just how beneficial their gut flora is, which is why regurgitation is such a big deal in our world. Introducing an external factor such as common wood mites or springtails could provoke a loss of beneficiary gut flora via stress, allowing more malignant organisms to come forward. Gods forbid the "harmless" organisms have hitchhiking pathogens, even if their presence has little effect on the animal itself.

Too much to go wrong. Keeping snakes has been largely successful in the absence of saprophytic organisms. And snakes are equipped with enough symbiotic organisms to survive without adding external creatures that may or may not be helpful.

Well I'll be itching uncontrollably all over for the rest of the day after those pics Satomi, thanks for that.

One place to check for mites is the little cleft under the chin of the snake. They don't like you checking there, but it's definitely the most fool proof way of checking if there are mites present. If there are any mites in the cage or on the snake, they will definitely be in that cleft.


Also, lol Melissa Kaplan.

how can a hatchling develop a symbiote that has genetics that are 500 million years old?

no individual can develop this, it is acquired. a bacterium that carries in it between 500 million to 2 billion years of evolution does not simply develop in the guts of a BP within months. its borrowed from the prey animals, the rats and mice. And in nature also from the soil.