This Is What Parasites Look Like Under An Electron Microscope

by  julia.letts

When reddit user reddit_scientist took his dog out for a walk, he didn't think anything out of the ordinary would happen. Less than an hour later, he knew something was wrong. As he was out driving, his foot started to itch. He thought he could ignore it, but it got worse and worse. When he pulled over, he noticed something was off.

It looked like there was dirt on his foot, only the dirt was crawling. As he described it, they were small, brown, crawling insects that looked just like ticks. Luckily, he was pulled over at a gas station so he could run into the bathroom to try to scrub them off.

Of course, as his username implies, he's a scientist, so he had to save a couple for examination. He was fairly sure they were harvest mites, which he describes as a type of parasite (only when in larva stage). Since he had access to a scanning electron microscope at work, there was no option but to investigate further. This is what he found:

First, he had to coat the sample in a thin layer of gold to keep it from building up a charge in the scanning electron microscope (SEM) inside the gold coater chamber

via imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist

Hand for scale

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Next, he placed the samples inside the sample holder

via imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist

Then, he placed the sample inside the SEM. The air was pumped out of the chamber and then the sample was blasted with an electron beam

via imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist

Now let's see what he found

via imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist

The head of the harvest mite

via imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist

And the mouth

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The antenna

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The leg

via imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist

During prep, reddit_scientist accidentally broke off a mite's leg. This is what it looked like inside

via imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist

And another harvest mite

via imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist

The face

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What reddit_scientist calls "mouth bits." Notice the barbs - that was what was embedded in his leg (dozens of them!)

via imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist

And last but not least, another perspective of the mite's leg

via imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist

Creepy isn't it? The worst part is that reddit_scientist was wearing long pants and socks, so getting mites is almost unavoidable unless you wear tall boots. Well, I'm never going outside again!

Collage source: imgur / reddit/u/reddit_scientist