Everyone knows that there are ticks that live in forests and pose a considerable danger to humans. Their relatives living in human dwellings also cause a lot of trouble. There are ticks that damage the national economy: they destroy plants and parasitize animals.
A subclass of ticks has earned truly formidable fame ... Some species are so deadly that a person takes all possible measures to destroy them. But on whose side the advantage in this centuries-old war is still a big question.
Against the background of relatives with a reputation for ruthless killers and indestructible pests, water mites seem almost harmless. Many have not heard of this group. Our article will help fill this gap and talk about the features of the life of these animals.
general information
The first thing to focus on is species affiliation. Some people mistakenly consider ticks to be insects, but this is not so. They are arachnids.
The family bears the international name Hydrachnidae. The whole life of these ticks is connected with the aquatic environment, but according to habits they are more similar to terrestrial arachnids than to other aquatic organisms.
Appearance
Consider what water ticks look like. Photos will help to visualize this.
Like all arachnids, they have four pairs of legs. The rounded body consists of an abdomen and a relatively small head. Most representatives of the group are small, up to 2-3 mm.
As a rule, the body is bright in color, from bright yellow to red. Some species of water mites are decorated with ornaments.
Chelicera (jaws) are developed, and pedipalps (jaw tentacles) are provided with bristles or hooks. In adults, the legs are much longer than the body and are equipped with setae necessary for movement in water.
Ticks have two or four eyes. According to scientists, they have excellent vision, which helps them navigate even in troubled waters.
It is possible to consider in detail how a water tick looks only under a microscope. But the accumulation of parasites on the host can be seen with the naked eye. For example, red spots on the back and sides of a water-measuring bug are nothing but a colony of larvae.
Hunting and nutrition
Most water mites are excellent hunters and predators. They feed on zooplankton, and sometimes attack other invertebrates. Some species parasitize, while others prefer native plants and detritus.
Most parasitic species feed on aquatic insects, some are dangerous to mollusks. The parasitism of this group of water mites in most cases does not pose a mortal threat to the owner, nevertheless it damages its health, affects its lifestyle, weakens and causes inconvenience.
Habitat
Among aquatic plants in the shallow waters of freshwater reservoirs, a wide variety of water mites are found. Most often, these animals settle in lakes, ponds, swamps, river backwaters, less often in running water of rivers and even perennial forest puddles.
Representatives of this group are widespread almost everywhere. A very small number of species can survive in salt water.
Physiology
All kinds of water mites breathe, absorbing oxygen dissolved in water by the surface of the body. The threshold for the required concentration is extremely low. Even if there is only one part of oxygen per million parts of water, ticks are enough. Due to this, the survival rate in polluted waters is very high.
Ticks with metamorphosis develop, that is, the larvae are very different from adults in appearance.
A tick appears with six legs. Most species parasitize at the larval stage. Then the larvae will have a difficult life cycle. It includes three juvenile stages. The larva pupates in order to later turn into a nymph. The nymph is more like an imago, and her lifestyle is more mobile. The first attempts to independently get comfortable in the environment, to master the skills of hunting, begin. After a certain time, the nymph also turns into a chrysalis, to then become an adult.
Immature individuals spend most of their time in inert conditions, attaching themselves to an animal or host plant and existing at its expense. In free swimming you can see only sexually mature water mites.
Who is a smoothie?
Another unusual creature is often mistakenly assigned to water mites. In fact, smoothfish is a water bug. His way of life is similar to that of aquatic arachnids, the most part of life is the bug-smoothies, who also spend in reservoirs. But these creatures are not even distantly related.
How not to mix it up? Estimate the size and count the legs. Smoothie is larger, and it has only 3 pairs of limbs.
Recently, this insect has attracted increased attention of active users of the Network. The fake news about the deadly danger of yum, supposedly capable of dying a healthy person in just two days, is rapidly spreading on many resources. The reason was a peculiar feature of these creatures. A photo of a male with a brood of eggs on the back looks very unusual, and therefore many believe in the accompanying picture a frightening text.
But this creature does not pose any danger to humans. True, at every opportunity it is not worth grabbing him into his hands - like many congener bedbugs, he can painfully bite if he feels that something threatens him or his babies.
The danger of water mites to humans
Not dangerous for people and eight-legged inhabitants of reservoirs. Ticks are not able to bite, much less penetrate under the skin. This family eats plant food and plankton. Parasitic species are also not interested in people.