"Good night, sleep tight; don't let the bed bugs bite!" This excerpt is probably the most commonly-used phrase when bidding your little ones to eight hours of slumber.
It wasn't until I came across the term dust mite in an article that I began to visualize the idea of an actual bed bug! Dust mites are tiny little creatures with eight legs and they belong to the arachnid family.
They are close relatives of spiders and ticks.
The sizes may vary but an average dust mite measure in at about 300 micro meters.
These almost-mythical beings can be viewed under an electron microscope.
With a creamy blue shell the outer layer of the body, these little creatures swoop into the indoors by either the bathroom or kitchen.
The biology begins with the hatching of a nymph.
The mother can produce up to 80 eggs at each go.
These dust mites can live up to four months.
They are quite flexible in terms of feeding.
These little critters eat dander or a dead skin cell which is shed by a human at the rate of 15 grams per day.
Dust mite biology is quite complex as a dust mite does not have a stomach but a sac or little pouch which digests food slowly.
Only half of the dead skin tissues are properly digested by the dust mite.
The other half is usually left to decompose on its own.
We need to understand dust allrgic biology when dealing with allergies because the fecal matters are the reason behind house dust-based allergic health problems such as asthma and infantile eczema.
Generally, an overload of these accumulated fecal matters can cause regular skin irritations as well as respiratory discomfort.
A large percentage of these tiny microscopic creatures inhabit houses, but there are mites living in barns and on nests.
The common attribute they share is being in warm and humid areas.
The biology is often mistaken to be same as dust bunnies'.
These two terminologies are quite similar; hence many may assume they look alike, when in fact there is nothing cute about a creepy-crawly form of a dust mite.
It wasn't until I came across the term dust mite in an article that I began to visualize the idea of an actual bed bug! Dust mites are tiny little creatures with eight legs and they belong to the arachnid family.
They are close relatives of spiders and ticks.
The sizes may vary but an average dust mite measure in at about 300 micro meters.
These almost-mythical beings can be viewed under an electron microscope.
With a creamy blue shell the outer layer of the body, these little creatures swoop into the indoors by either the bathroom or kitchen.
The biology begins with the hatching of a nymph.
The mother can produce up to 80 eggs at each go.
These dust mites can live up to four months.
They are quite flexible in terms of feeding.
These little critters eat dander or a dead skin cell which is shed by a human at the rate of 15 grams per day.
Dust mite biology is quite complex as a dust mite does not have a stomach but a sac or little pouch which digests food slowly.
Only half of the dead skin tissues are properly digested by the dust mite.
The other half is usually left to decompose on its own.
We need to understand dust allrgic biology when dealing with allergies because the fecal matters are the reason behind house dust-based allergic health problems such as asthma and infantile eczema.
Generally, an overload of these accumulated fecal matters can cause regular skin irritations as well as respiratory discomfort.
A large percentage of these tiny microscopic creatures inhabit houses, but there are mites living in barns and on nests.
The common attribute they share is being in warm and humid areas.
The biology is often mistaken to be same as dust bunnies'.
These two terminologies are quite similar; hence many may assume they look alike, when in fact there is nothing cute about a creepy-crawly form of a dust mite.
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