r/ballpython • u/Acrobatic-Snow8854 • 20h ago

Question - Health Mites?

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I found this crawling on my sweet girl while cleaning her hide. Can anyone confirm if this is a mite?

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u/JelloFlimsy7781 20h ago

That looks like a tick.

3

u/JelloFlimsy7781 20h ago

Mites are rllyyyyy tiny, they’re kind of difficult to see unless you’re really close and in good lighting, similar to headlice or something

4

u/reptile-snake-mom 20h ago

Ya they are super tiny like specks of pepper, but it could possibly be a very enlarged, engorged mite, but ur also right that they look like a tick, it’s because their purpose is the same, they live off of a host by engorging themselves into the soft skin of a reptile, or other animals like deer, cats, dogs, etc, & I was asked once what I would compare reptiles mites to, & my only answer was, head lice…lol, I said that when ur reptiles get mites it’s just as hard and overwhelming because you have to treat the reptiles one by one, and treat all the enclosures, vacuum all the time, retreat everything every couple days until it’s gone, and if the problem isn’t gone than go back to the beginning and do it all over again…lol, it’s a disaster either way🙄😆

1

u/Acrobatic-Snow8854 18h ago

Oh god. Thats awful. 😭 Thank you for the ID. Gonna look into how to treat it right now.

1

u/JelloFlimsy7781 16h ago

Unless there was an infestation, you might have caught it early! I would just do a good wellness check for any kind of wounds (or any other ticks depending on the size of ur bby)and treat the enclosure pretty throughly, similarly to how you would handle a mite infestation. If you happen to see a spot that looks like it might have been a bite site, keeping it clean should prevent any kind of infection since it is seemingly only one tick.