Corona Wildlife Diary: Day Ninety

The uplifting role that wildlife plays in our lives becomes more vital than ever. So, for my own sanity as much as anything, I’m going to keep a daily diary of what I find around my garden and in my eyelashes. Post your pictures on the ‘Sussex Wildlife Trust Nature Table’ page.

Day Ninety

Well, I don't have much time left folks. I'll be finishing this daily diary in ten days when I get to Day 100. 

I hope that I've been able to distract you from the tough times and inspire you by showing you some of the amazing wildlife that you have living right under your noses.

Well, today I want to freak you out by showing you some of the amazing wildlife you have right in your noses.

In the past 90 days I've been in my garden, I've been under the neighbour's shed, I've been behind the fridge and I've been face down in my pond but...I've never been to me.

OK, I warn you now, after reading today's diary some of you will be scouring your face with a Brillo pad. But it’s time to face the facts about your face. It’s crawling with microscopic animals.

You, yes YOU, have face mites. And there’s no ‘might’ about it – research has shown that 100% of adults have them. Our faces are one big nature reserve for mites; from your mountainous nose to your skin pore caves and your eyelash forests. In fact our faces are home to two different species of face mites. Demodex folliculorum thrive in your eyelashes while Demodex brevis lurk in your pores. Don’t worry, they’re both harmless and have been living on humans ever since we climbed down out of the trees.

Before you run to the bathroom mirror these guys are tiny. I’m not going to lie to you folks, they’re not pretty (unless you think a microscopic Jabba the Hutt is pretty) because under a high-powered microscope they look like something you’d encounter in a galaxy far, far away. But whether you find them cute or not they’re a part of you. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And the eyelash of the beholder too.

I've always wanted to see a face mite so last night you would have found me in the bathroom with sellotape across my eyes trying to remove my eyelashes. It turns out removing eyelashes is not as easy as I thought but eventually I managed to get three eyelashes on the sellotape and studied them down a microscope at 100 x magnification.

Well, there's one of my eyelashes. I studied one eyelash for about 15 minutes and it seemed mite-free. I tried the other two but there were no mites. I was really disappointed but didn't want to sacrifice any more eyelashes.

Face mites are apparently nocturnal so I set a face mite trap. I stuck a strip of sellotape across my face and went to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night and I was just too exited to wait until the morning. I jumped out of bed, ripped off the sellotape and stuck it to a glass slide. 

I scanned around the slide for a bit, not too sure what I was looking for. I was about to give up when I saw something....(at 40 x)

I zoomed in...(100 x)

And zoomed in again...(400 x)

Oh. My. God. Well, I have to say I have discovered some exciting things in the past 90 days but nothing equalled the excitement of discovering this little creature. Believe me, there is nothing more freaky or humbling than coming face to face with your own face mite.
The thing is, instead of the revulsion I thought I'd feel, I fell in love with it instantly. I took loads of photos of it - which I guess could be classed as selfies - and even managed to film him. Look - it's waving at me with its eight little legs!

Now, before you start recommending facial scrubs to me don't forget that you all have them living in your faces too. No matter how hard you scrub you won’t get rid of them. I know for a fact that when we start having visitors again I'm going to be waiting for you with a roll of sellotape and a microscope.

Face mites are obligate commensal parasites. The egg and larval stages of the face mite last two weeks and the adults live for just 5 days and then die. And it's probably right about here you’ll realise that these things must be CONSTANTLY MATING ON YOUR FACE. They come out at night and crawl around (at speeds of 16mm an hour) on their eight legs and, as part of the class arachnida, they are related to spiders, ticks and scorpions. After confessing my arachnophobia on Day 12 discovering I have eight-legged arachnids actually living on me is going to take some getting used to. One thing is reassuring though. I'm never going to feel alone again.

Way back on Day 39  we had a few songs from Ol' Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra. So to play us out today here's Frank with his song about face mites (here)