Mites?

[Astronut]

Hi all, I bought this juvenile Madagascan marbled mantis recently. Are those mites on its head? If so, are they harmful? Could they spread to my other mantids and my spiders? I’ve not seen this before.

 

[Astronut]

Hi all, I bought this juvenile Madagascan marbled mantis recently. Are those mites on its head? If so, are they harmful? Could they spread to my other mantids and my spiders? I’ve not seen this before.

I’ve been told they’re mites they can pick up from feeders and are supposedly harmless. They come off with each moult.

 

[Orin]

They're not parasitic, the parsitic ones attach at the joints and usually look like odd polyps when immature. They look really neat, but I'm a fan of commensal mites. Usually mantids are too dry to host mites and I've never seen them.