These Tiny Parasites will Destroy your House Plants

This close up shot of the spidermites was filmed with Skybasic Magnification Camera digital microscope with 1000x magnification. This microscopic view helps to illuminate the ecology of spider mite infestations.

Spider mites are parasitic, virtually microscopic pests that live and feed on the underside of leaves.
Spider mites are arachnids, meaning they are related to spiders, ticks, and scorpions rather than insects.

Using their piercing needle-like mouth parts they will puncture the leaf cells and suck out the sap and chlorophyll,
thus damaging the plant's overall photosynthetic efficiency.

These mites are a common nuisance in gardens and house plants, capable of inflicting severe damage to the plant,
eventually resulting in death if left untreated.

Heavy spider mite infestations are capable of destroying 1-2 dozen plant cells per minute. The first visible signs
of an infestation are small whitish or yellow speckles, or stippling, around the midrib and larger veins.
These pests are smaller than 1 mm, or 1/50th of an inch, and are capable of affecting a wide variety of host plants.
Adult spider mites can be red, orange, yellow, green, or brown in color, often depending on which species of host
plant they occur.
Similar to spiders, these mites are capable of producing silk, and will commonly spin a fine, protective web on
the underside of leaves, a key identifying characteristic of spider mite infestations.

Spider mites are capable of reproducing both sexually and asexually. The unfertilized eggs will develop into males
and the fertilized eggs will develop into females, a form of reproductions known as arrhenotoky, or
arrhenotokous parthenogenesis. This unique form of asexual reproduction also occurs in insects such as bees, ants
and wasps.

This is a shot of the nymph phase, which is one of the multiple stages of their life cycle. The nymphs are also
capable of producing silk.

Female spider mites have a lifespan of up to 30 days and are capable of producing from 90 to 110 eggs on average
during that time, taking as few as five days to become sexually mature. It is due to this great reproduction
capacity that spider mite populations tend to explode and are capable of rapidly destroying plants, especially
in a hot, dry climate, which are favorable climatic conditions.

Spider mites can become very difficult to control. The mite's natural predator, Phytoseiulus perimilis, is
commonly used as a biological control method; preying mainly or exclusively on spider mites this species of
predatory mite can consume as many as 5 adult spider mites per day, or 20 eggs per day.

Other methods to control spider mite infestations include Neem oil, insecticidal soap, mite pesticides, and other
chemical control agents, however, intensive use of pesticides has led to pesticide resistance in some spider mite
populations.

Видео These Tiny Parasites will Destroy your House Plants канала 21st Century Nature