A section of the BugGuide page entitled "Exactly what is a chigger?" reads, "They are basically too small to see with the unaided eye, and therefore there are no photos of them here in the guide" but the Encyclopedia Britannica states that chiggers range from 0.1 mm to 16 mm in length. From what I can find elsewhere, the photo that I have here shows a chigger. The BugGudie chigger page also reads, "You must live in a northern climate not to have encountered them." Since I live in Newfoundland, this all makes me wonder if what I have here is a chigger or not. My photo certainly looks like what is called a chigger on this South Jersey Geocaching page.   Some of the Velvet Mite photos her at BugGuide also look somewhat like my photo but I don't think the Velvet Mite photos look exactly the same as mine. I found this bug crawling on some dirt around the roots of a tree that had blown over in a wooded area along a walking trail. It was about 5:00 PM. I wasn't prepared for a macro shot, so I brought it home and photographed it crawling on a white Kleenex tissue. For what it's worth, this bug also seemed to curl up in a ball when it got really frightened. Sorry the image is not sharper. Time for a 5X macro lens! :) Ideas on an ID?