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Demodex Mites Research Paper

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Ever wonder if you have something on your face? No, not the crumbs or rubbish,but mites! There are mites on your face called demodex mites that are crawling, eating, and reproducing on your face! Demodex folliculorum and demodex brevis are one of the “most common ectoparasites” ("Demodex Folliculorum." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation.) that live upon the surface of our bodies, “rather than burrowing inside” ("Everything You Never Wanted to Know about the Mites That Eat, Crawl, and Have Sex on Your Face - Not Exactly Rocket Science.") of our bodies. These mites have been “independently” (Not Exactly Rocket Science) discovered in 1841 by two scientists. A year later it was properly acknowledged by a German dermatologist, Gustav Simon. He noticed …show more content…

The most famous hot spots of where these mites inhabit in is usually around our hair follicles of the eyebrows, eyelashes (hence the eyelash mites), and oily pores. The most common areas of where oily pores are on the nose, cheeks and forehead. In their diet the demodex mites eat the skin cells or sebum (also known as our facial oil) and would form a colony on our face during puberty.Under outbreak conditions (demodicosis) demodex mites can be harmful,meaning the immune system is unable to keep the mites under control causing the host to have mild irritation, hair loss, widespread inflammation, and so forth.Though,the mites are usually harmless under normal conditions and the mites benefit themselves from the skin cells or sebum that we produce (known as a commensal relationship) rather than parasites where the host (humans/animals) is being …show more content…

It is the demodex folliculorum and demodex brevis.These two mites are both similar, yet different in their own ways. Both are sausage-shaped species, with eight stubby legs clustered in their front third. What differs between demodex folliculorum and demodex brevis is that the demodex folliculorum is bigger than demodex brevis. In addition, demodex folliculorum also has a seven- clawed organ (a “palpus”) that is on either side of its’ mouth to secure itself to what it is eating. ““All of the structures formed a sharp,offensive weapon,” writes Xu Jing,who first looked at them under an electron microscope.”(Not Exactly Rocket Science) On the other hand, the demodex brevis has a five-clawed palpus and was branded as “”less offensive”” (Not Exactly Rocket Science) because it had a less amount of the clawed organ (palpus).With their stumpy legs they are hardly fast, for it would take them almost half a day for the demodex mites “to cover the distance from your ear to nose.”(Not Exactly Rocket Science) What’s really weird about demodex mites is that they don’t defecate,because the mites “have no anus, and it stores its waste in large cells within its gut.”(Not Exactly Rocket Science) Unfortunately the only time the mites release their waste is “when the mite dies, its body disintegrates and the waste is released.”(Not Exactly Rocket Science)

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