It’s a bit hard to make out in the photo, but there the center is a larger black insect being swarmed by dozens of small light brown ones. The larger one looks like some sort of beetle. What are the smaller ones?

  • Successful_Try543@feddit.deEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    I somehow forgot to include a sentence from the properties section:

    Some of the mites live ectoparasitically on beetles and are also phoretic here, as they utilize the transport capacity of their host.

    I think this implies they also drink the ‘blood’ of the beetle while being transported to another place.

    • Kethal@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      Thanks. More creepy bug stuff I didn’t know about. The beetle seemed inhibited if not incapacitated by them. It looked to me like a swarming attack, but it could have just been that there were so many that it couldn’t easily move.