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Trombidiidae
Spotted on Apr 21, 2012
Submitted on Apr 21, 2012
5 Comments
This is indeed a true velvet mite (Trombidiidae) and is likely in the genus Allothrombium. I thought I would make a note to the previous comment by "annorion" that technically the chigger identification isn't totally wrong... because the photo Wikipedia shows for "chigger" is actually a trombidiid, not a chigger :) Photographs of adult chiggers (not the parasitic larvae) are actually quite rare. In fact, I only know of one image on the internet (http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecolog...) depicting a true chigger. Interestingly, this photo comes from a website (http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecolog...) that misidentifies two other velvet mite families (Trombidiidae and Eutrombidiidae) as chiggers (Trombiculidae). Anyway, hope you find this information interesting and helpful.
Yeah, that looks correct. So the chigger eludes me still... I guess that's OK.
This is a species of Velvet Mite, Family Trombidiidae:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/2419/bgpag...
Red bug! Heard of them but never seen one till now. Scary. Thanks for the suggestion.
Looks like a chigger...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombiculidae