Quote:
Originally Posted by nube
That stuff grosses me out. What are they?
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Heeby Jeebies ...Indeed! haha.
Its funny how as soon as you start seeing them, you start feeling "itchy" all over. lol
I am not certain what they are. They are definitely not Fleas. There's not a lot of great pictures to compare to on the internet. And there is no way to compare size. They could be ticks or mites. Ticks have like 5 different stages in life - from very small to quite large.Most of the images available to compare to are of the adult stage. Mites mostly seem to be extremely tiny (like electron microscope tiny), but some look like it could be those as well.
All I know is they don't want to die. I don't know how so many can survive on an aquatic animal. I certainly don't feel like getting Lyme disease.
I think they are all coming off of the rats from one slough. I wasn't sure at first if one, or all of them had them, as they were all tossed together.
There is a program in alberta studying ticks. Perhaps I'll collect a few to drop off, and see what they are.
Blech!