Chiggers? Very tiny red spidery looking bugs

[steel1man]

Been seeing a few outside on tables/grill top/pool pump. Pool guy says he calls them Chiggers. Anyone else now about these and know what they are.?

 

[Jim Tucker]

I believe those may indeed be spiders recently birthed. Chiggers are never seen but often felt in uncomfortable places!

 

[chip hagler]

Growing up in the area, we always thought they came from tree moss. Tiny red spider looking bugs that can cause bumps

 

[Lady D]

And they make you itch to death. Horrible.

 

[Will B]

Chiggers only bite humans in the larva stage. At that point they are about 1/100th of an inch. They don't burrow. Those are scabies mites. Their bite causes the welt due to their saliva dissolving the skin.

By the time they are red and big enough to see they pose no human threat. At that stage they are nymphs and feed on insects and bug eggs.

Yeah...my whole back was eaten up by them a few years because I was dumb enough to lay in the grass on the side of the road in the N. GA mountains trying to reattach a muffler.

You'd be better off offering yourself up to a swarm of mosquitoes. It was awful and took about three weeks to clear up....

Bottom line....don't worry about the little red ones. It's the ones you don't see that are the problem!

 

[SlowMovin]

Will B is spot on. If you can see them, they're not a problem.

Avoid spanish moss and palmetto bushes.

They are worse than yellow flies, no-see-ums, fleas, fire ants...

Mosquitoes aren't even remotely in the same league. I'd rather be stung by a yellow jacket than get into a mess of chiggers. First time it ever happened to me (I was just a kid--nineteen-, twenty-years-old, back in Louisiana when I was working land surveys out in the swamps) I had purple welts the size of quarters on both legs and itched to high heaven for almost a week.

Those were the days...

 

[spaglioni]

Concur on the subject. Went on a camp out in Alabama a few years back and made the mistake of unzipping the lower part of my hiking pants to sit around the camp in shorts (and to do a tick review). Three weeks later i was still cussing and scratching. Give me Yellow Jackets any day.

 

[beachbarnacle]

They are horrible in Texas. if you spray your legs and feet with bug spray before getting in weeds or grass it will keep them off. Don't ever touch the moss.