Today, I noticed that my ball python Radi has tiny brown dots around his nostrils, only about the size of this period. I feared it might be mites (I don't know what snake mites look like but I know on cats they are teenie and dark in coloring) so I, of course, FREAKED OUT!

But after calming down, I realized that Radi had some more of these tiny dark brown specks on his lighter patches and now I'm stuck between "OMG MY POOR BABY HAS MITES! " and "he's even more beautiful than I thought"

Help?

Please and thanks!

(PS, he's not wild caught. He's about 5 years old and I adopted him from someone. He hasn't come in contact with other snakes since then, but the only other snake his preivous owner had is a huge burmese python and I don't think poor Radi gotgood care ...the way he handled my baby was appaling!)