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Red Velvet Mite of some variety

Trombidiidae ???

Photo by TracyB
Published on Project Noah
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35.5901, 101.966

Field Notes

Description:

Some type of Red Velvet Mite, Family Trombidiidae. Saw it crawling around in a mountainside grassland. ID thus far thanks to user valgaavmiko.

Notes:

12:29pm CST

Species ID Suggestions

Red Velvet Mite

Family Trombidiidae

Comments (3)

Hi tracy! Unfortunately with a lot of mite species, colors and patterns can be identical and sometimes you need to take a closer look at the anatomy in order to identify down to species level. I checked and you have at least 7 Trombidiids and there isn't any key that I can find for Chinese mites. Hopefully this is a species that is very distinct to the area and someone will recognize it.
Thanks, valgaavmiko! Yes, the three identifying factors I can contribute are the location (already noted), the pattern of smokey-black pattern on its back, and the fact that, to my naked eye as I stared at it from a bird's-eye view and it crawled around, its back had the appearance of being flat like a piece of cardboard on top of those legs, not at all bulbous like some of its relative species'. I've also added one more picture to give a clearer view of the relative size and placement of its head.
I'm not sure how many species you have in that area so I'm leaving at family for now. I doubt you could get down to species level with this picture unless you only have one species.
Photographed
PublishedNovember 11, 2013

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