Clover mites and chiggers are both tiny bugs that look very identify. However, in this blog post, we are comparing both bugs as clover mites vs chiggers.
When it comes to tiny red bugs, identification is a vital first step to determining the best form of control for clover mites and chiggers. As you read on, you will also learn the differences between clover mites vs chiggers.
Tiny Red Bugs: Clover Mites vs Chiggers
Clover mites vs chiggers are tiny red bugs that are commonly mistaken for one another but the damage they cause is different.
Clover mites attack trees, shrubs, and other plants while triggers target humans and small animals. One of the most common and destructive forms of mites that feed on plants is the clover mite.
These mites are around 0.75 millimeters in length, have eight legs, and are shaped like ovals. In most cases, they have a hue that is between green and red.
Chiggers are a type of mite belonging to the family Trombiculidae, which is also known as spider mites, berry bugs, harvest mites, bush mites, red bugs, and scrub-itch mites.
Chiggers are a frequent name for this family of mites. Chiggers and jiggers, a type of flea, are sometimes confused with one another.
Read also: Do Clover Mites Bite?
Clover Mites vs Chiggers: Identification
Chiggers and clover mites are very tiny parasites. It can be difficult to identify between clover mites and chiggers, as well as the other way around. Below are ways to identify clover mites and chiggers.
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Read also: Chiggers: How to Identify and Get Rid of Chiggers
Picture of Clover mites and Chiggers
Below are pictures of clover mites vs chiggers:
Difference Between Clover Mites vs Chiggers
Clover mites and chiggers are so small. It’s challenging to tell whether clover mites from chiggers and vice versa.
However, there are key differences in their physical appearances, adult clover mites grow up to 1/30 of an inch in length and adult Chiggers grow to be 1/16 of an inch or even smaller.
While you’ll at least be able to see clover mites with your naked eye, you’ll still need magnification to see their physical features.
Clover mites have a pair of front legs that are significantly longer than the other pairs and they have ovular-shaped bodies
Adult chiggers on the other hand have almost strawberry shaped bodies. Clover mites are usually found outdoors on foliage, along your home’s perimeter, and around entry points, like doors, windows, cracks, and crevices.
In cooler weather, they can invade indoors and infest houses, and plants as they look for warmth and shelter.
Chiggers are only found outdoors and do not invade indoor spaces. They prefer moist overgrown, wooded habitats, with shaded soil.
They can also be found around Lakes, swamps and rivers. Clover mites can infest indoors too. They do not bite people, they feed by piercing plants and ingesting the sap.
If you’re being bitten, you’re likely being bitten by larval chiggers. Remember adult chiggers do not bite, larval chiggers feed on their host’s skin cells, leaving itchy red bumps or welts on the bites.
These bites are typically found around the waist, ankles behind the knee, and wherever else clothing. Although clover mites and chiggers are both small red arachnids. They are physiologically different pests that require unique approaches to treatment.
Read also: How to Get Rid of Spider Mites
Clover mites vs Chiggers: Feeding
Feeding Habit of Clover mites:
Clover mites do not eat blood, however, they can be found in the outside environment. Sucking plant liquids from clover, grass, shrubs, trees, and other plants, they gain their sustenance.
There is an abundance of mold and mildew on rooftops and patios, where they can find a large population.
Feeding Habit of Chiggers:
Insects, including chiggers, feed on blood, including the blood of mammals and other creatures. Chiggers prefer tiny mammals, birds, and reptiles to humans since humans are unintentional hosts.
chiggers, as adults, do not bite humans. Only the larvae of chigger bugs are known to bite humans. When you scratch a chigger bite, you can get an infection because of the redness and extreme itching that results.
Clover mites vs Chiggers: Life Cycles
Life Cycles of Clover mites:
Unfertilized eggs are the source of Clover mite evolution. Under tree bark or in gaps in fences and walls, the female clover mite can lay up to 70 small reddish-brown eggs.
The young larvae feed on the plant sap throughout their life cycle after hatching from these eggs.
Clover mites can live up to two weeks in their adult form, depending on the climate. Clover mites live for roughly a month every generation.
Life Cycle of Chiggers:
The life cycle of a chigger bug has four distinct stages: eggs, larvae, nymphs, and adults. As many as five eggs are laid per day by an adult female chigger throughout the spring.
Chigger eggs hatch into six-legged larvae that feed on warm-blooded hosts’ skin after five to seven days.
At this point, the larvae will change into eight-legged adults in seven to 10 days, after which time they’ll molt into nymphs.
Chiggers can produce up to five generations a year, depending on the temperature, location, and moisture. The entire chigger life cycle might take anywhere from two months to a year to complete.
Clover Mites vs Chiggers: Hiding Spots
Hiding Spots of Clover mites:
You’ll discover clover mites in your grass behind loose tree bark, on foundations, walls, and around window frames since they feed on green plants and trees.
Hiding Spots of Chiggers:
Signs of Clover Mites vs Chiggers Infestation
Signs of Clover Mites Infestation
It can be difficult to identify clover mites with only your naked eye. It’s possible that people living in infested buildings will detect teeny, moving spots on the walls, draperies, and window shades, but it’s impossible to make a positive identification without taking a closer look.
It is possible that there is an infestation of clover mites if there are crimson stains on carpets, drapes, papers that have been left out in the open, or other surfaces that are light in color.
Because clover mites are unable to live long after entering homes, homeowners may not even detect any evidence of infestation until the issue has been reduced to a manageable level.
Signs of Chiggers Infestation
When you’ve been bitten by chiggers and endured the excruciating itching that follows, you’ll immediately be able to identify their bite.
The appearance of subsequent little, raised, red blisters will serve as conclusive evidence. It is not uncommon to receive multiple bites from a chigger rather than just one or two.
They tend to congregate in places where the clothing is drawn in the most, such as the waistband or the tops of the socks.
Chigger infestations can occur at any time of the year, but they are more common in the warm summer months.
Chiggers thrive in regions that are overgrown and shrubby, as well as those that include weeds and long grasses.
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