These are the HORRIFYING creepy crawlies living on your face… and you can’t even see them
Before you rush out to buy an extra-strong face wash, it’s worth noting these creepy crawlies are almost entirely harmless
THEY’VE got eight legs, feast on dead skin cells – and are living on your face right now.
Thousands of mites are crawling, eating, sleeping and have sex on your skin, but they can only be seen through a powerful microscope.
But, before you rush out to buy an extra-strong face wash, it’s worth noting that these creepy crawlies aren’t a serious problem and are almost entirely harmless.
There are two species of mite that live on your face: demodex folliculorum and demodex brevis, reports .
Demodex folliculorum are commonly found around human hair follicles, usually in greater numbers around the cheeks, nose, eyebrows, eyelashes and forehead.
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They can also be found in other parts of the body such as the arms, chest and ears, but they do not invade internal organs.
We aren’t born with these mites - they are picked up through contact with other people, as well as from things such as towels and pillow cases.
Under normal conditions they are not harmful and are classed as commensals (the mite benefits from living on people but there is no harm or benefit to us).
Demodex folliculorum was discovered by a Frenchman called Berger in 1842 while he was studying earwax, reports .
All about the critters...
- The mites are semi-transparent, elongated organisms that have a head, neck, body and a tail
- They are worm-like with tiny claws and scales all over their bodies
- They can measure from 0.1mm to 0.4mm in length and have four pairs of short legs
- The average lifespan is between 18 to 24 days
- They can’t excrete their waste so they fill up with faeces until they die
- The carcass then dries up and the dead mite breaks down and is eaten by other bugs
During the day mites feed on dead skin cells within hair follicles, while at night they emerge to mate and lay eggs.
Heavy infestations of mites can arrive in adolescence – thanks to the sebaceous glands during puberty – and can last up to middle age.
The distribution of mites varies person to person, but men are likely to have heavier infestations because they have more sebaceous glands.
A study published in the in 2014 found that, in a small sample of 29 people, 100% of subjects older than 18 had mite DNA on their face (for 18-year-olds, the number dropped to 70%).
"It's hard to speculate or quantify but a low population would be maybe in the hundreds," study researcher Megan Thoemmes, of North Carolina State University, .
"A high mite population would be thousands."
Demodex brevis are very similar to demodex folliculorum but they survive in sebaceous glands adjacent to hair follicles, for example, around the eye area.
During a severe infestation, people may experience adverse effects such as rough, dry and itchy skin.
There are therapies that kill demodex mites but you can’t get rid of them forever as they rebound every six weeks.
Meanwhile, a mum has recalled the horrifying moment doctors discovered a spider living in her ear.
Angela Colborn went to the A&E department last week when suffering from an “itchy ear” and swollen face.
Medics found the creepy crawly was “lodged too deep” to be grabbed using forceps, so they flooded the ear with oil for 15 minutes to drown the critter.