Is this a snake mite or something else (with photos)?

[newbpowner4]

I'm a new ball python owner and I've had these two females for over 6 weeks (got them on Dec. 6, 2020) and today I saw this (see attached photos) floating in the water bowl of my enchi female. I fished it out and took the photos linked below. I assumed they were mites but I thought that mites were black and more round and in the close up/zoomed in photo it looks kind of white/clear. Any thoughts on what this could be? There was also a tiny bug on the side of my clown female's bowl as well but without thinking I washed it away and didn't take a picture. However, I'm sure it was the same kind of bug as the one I did take photos of. The fact that there were two, one in each of their enclosures, makes me even more worried that it's mites. I checked both of my females as thoroughly as possible including popping them and looking in their vent, around their eyes and heat pits, their bellies, and underneath their chins in the slit (I used my thumb to lightly pull it open a little bit). I also held them and ran my hands on their sides and back and checked my hands. After all of this I saw nothing. But since they are an enchi and a clown, they have a lot of black scales on their bodies, including around their eyes and heat pits so I think it would be hard to see any mites there. Also, they are on paper towels as a substrate and I haven't seen any sign of mites or whatever this insect is in the past 6 weeks I've had them. I change their water bowls every other day and I handle them almost every day (except around feeding day of course) I know I can soak them to see if any mites come off but I also know that most ball pythons don't really like to be soaked so since I was able to get photos, I wanted to ask you all first before putting them through a potentially unnecessary soak. Please let me know what you guys think, I'm really hoping it's a wood mite or something!


The first picture is the original and to show how small it is (it's that tiny speck almost right in the middle between my two fingers) and the second is just a cropped zoomed in version of the first.




https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/sho...atid=newimages


https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/sho...atid=newimages

[Bogertophis]

Have you tried squashing one on a white paper towel? Snake mites are usually full of blood, so when squished, you'll have a blood spot on the paper. That looks more like a wood mite of some kind to me? It has been a couple decades though, since I've personally had to deal with any on one of my snakes. I've been trying to find a good picture close-up of a snake mite to compare yours to. But if it's a wood mite, it had to come from somewhere, & if your substrate is only paper towels, I don't know where this would have come from? Snake mites can appear black, brown or reddish, btw. Use a damp white paper towel to wipe down your snakes- see if you find any on them...if so, they're probably snake mites. Wood mites shouldn't be interested in hitching rides on snakes. And when squished, there won't be blood from a "wood mite".

From Wiki-

Male

Ophionyssus natricis (snake mite)


excerpt: "The larvae are pale white. They either stay pale ivory or yellow if unfed in the protonymph stage. The mites turn a dark red if feeding does occur. After feeding, the mites have a soft body that is dark red or black in color and noticeable legs that can be seen by the human eye during the deutonymph stage."

[newbpowner4]

Hi thank you for your reply. I tried the damp paper towel trick you mentioned with both of the girls (one was much more cooperative than the other lol) and I did not see anything on the paper towels. I was even able to get Athena (the enchi) to pull her head backwards through the paper towel multiple times as I gently wrapped it around her head. As for where another type of bug could have come from, like a wood mite maybe, we have lots of random bugs in our apartment. Silverfish, little flying bugs (not gnats or flies, I think they are drain flies but idk) and when we first moved in a few months ago, there were tiny brown bugs I saw moving on the walls occasionally, I was able to get a picture of one of those too. I only found out they were brown from the photo I took, otherwise they were too small for me to tell. The apartment was newly renovated I believe and their was a layer of sawdust everywhere when we first moved in. I haven't seen those tiny brown bugs since October though. My fiancé mentioned maybe it's a super tiny baby silverfish? But I've never seen one that small and idk how two would've gotten into each enclosure. I'm worried it could maybe be the VERY beginning of a mite infestation and that could maybe explain why there was nothing on the paper towels?

Oh and if I find another one I'll try crushing it on a paper towel to see if there's any blood but it was so small so I'm not sure I'd even be able to see any blood, but I'll definitely give it a try. Hopefully I don't find any more though.