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Photo#733635
Brown thing on Lethocerus - Hydrachna

Brown thing on Lethocerus - Hydrachna
Athol, Worcester County, Massachusetts, USA
May 12, 2012

Moved
Moved from Mites and Ticks.

 
Thanks Ray...
Why do these two look so different?

 
Disclaimer & guess
First let me offer a disclaimer: without a properly curated, slide-mounted specimen, nice scope, and most importantly lots of experience, water mite larvae as a whole cannot be identified confidently. Of course there are commonalities (e.g. Arrenurus on odonates, Hydrachna on bugs), but without the specimen, these are only guesses. That said, Hydrachna are known to parasitize water bugs, live in the same habitats as Lethocerus, and the larvae do look very similar to the one pictured. Ok, now to your question... :)

The general life history for water mites (and all Parasitengona) is to have a parasitic larva, drop off host to develop as an inactive "pupal" protonymph (nymphochrysalis), emerge as an active predatory deutonymph, again develop as an inactive "pupal tritonymph (imagochrysalis), and finally emerge as an active predatory adult. Unlike most parasitengones however, Hydrachna nymphochrysalize (hmm... cool word...) on host, so that what emerges from the larval skin is the active deutonymph. This is helpful for a beast living on aquatic bugs that live in transient, marshy habitats.

All of that to say that I suspect the red mite depicts a larva, and the brown mite depicts a nymphochrysalis (developing protonymph) developing within the larval skin. The presence of the two mite morphs was another piece of evidence suggesting this mite is Hydrachna.

Moved
Moved from ID Request.
I think this is probably not a mite (leech, maybe?), but thought I'd try here since I didn't get any response in ID Request.

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