Last of the Chigger Season

With October, we say farewell and good riddance to those horrid pests, the chigger mites. Their population cycle peaks in early June with a second smaller generation in August. Except for a few stragglers, those reminders of summer days are now gone.

Chiggers are larval mites, looking for snake, lizard or other hosts. The adults live in the soil and feed on other small creatures. We humans are an accidental dead end for larval chiggers. One good scratch and they're gone. The bite remains.

I think I’m the US expert on chiggers, thanks to my survivorship. (Well, there’s still Lee Goff in Hawaii and Willie Wren in the Dakotas. Maybe I’m simply the oldest).

Mom had an old southern recipe for a little boy’s “redbug” bites – salt and butter. My grandmother, daughter of a druggist, recommended Absorbine Junior. My generation painted the bites with fingernail polish and claimed that it worked.

Here are two myths about chiggers: One, they burrow into your skin (they don’t), and two, Spanish moss is loaded with chiggers (It isn’t. No chiggers there. Sorry.)

And here’s a puzzle. People living west of Webb’s Line, the 98th meridian, don’t get chiggers. Walter Prescott Webb in his classic study The Great Plains used the 98th as the approximate separation of tall- and short-grass prairies. You don’t get chigger bites west of the line, where the short grass grows.

I married a young lady from Amarillo and took her south on our honeymoon. She experienced chigger attacks for the first time. An event of some significance on a honeymoon.

The puzzle is that the chiggers are there in the short-grass prairie. They’re found on rabbits, mice, snakes. Either they don’t bite humans, or their bite causes no irritation. People surely must contact them, at picnics in the parks along water courses if no place else. But no chigger attacks there. (I’m not talking about California).

It would make a nice little experiment, wouldn’t it? Expose yourself or a friend to those western chiggers and see what happens. Would they be bitten?

In the glory days of chigger studies – why didn’t somebody do that? I still wonder.

Dac Crossley
October 6, 2011

“A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about.” – Poet Miguel de Unamuno.

Comments

[Mister Allan]

Hi there! Do you somehow check if the content of your domain is exclusive around the blogosphere and no one is using it without making sure you know about it?

[Dave]

The 98th Meridian pattern is interesting, I've been in Alberta 8 years without a chigger bite and without anyone coming to me to complain of one. Of course, we don't have much in the way of reptiles, and so lack their chiggers, but I have some records for mammal chiggers. Let me know if any of these look suss:

Euschoengastia camgi Brown & Brennan, 1952 – ex Richardson’s Ground Squirrel (Urocitellus richardsonii (Sabine, 1822)) (Brown & Brennan 1952)
Euschoengastia criceticola Brennan, 1948 – ex Peromyscus maniculatus osgoodi, Manyberries, AB (Brown & Brennan 1952)
Euschoengastia oregonensis (Ewing, 1929) – ex Richardson’s Ground Squirrel (Urocitellus richardsonii (Sabine, 1822)), Lomond, AB (Brown & Brennan 1952)
Euschoengastia sciuricola (Ewing, 1925) – ex Yellow Pine Chipmunk (Eutamias amoneus), Lake Louise, Saskatchewan River Crossing, Banff National Park, AB; Western Heather Vole (Phenacomys intermedius) , Banff National Park, AB (Brown & Brennan 1952)
Hyponeocula arenicola (Loomis, 1954) – (Brennan & Beck 1955 – as Trombicula)
Hyponeocula montanensis (Brennan, 1946) - ex Richardson’s Ground Squirrel (Urocitellus richardsonii (Sabine, 1822)), House Mouse (Mus musculus), Lomond, AB (Brown & Brennan 1952 – as Trombicula)
Leptotrombidium myotis (Ewing, 1929) – ex Peromyscus leucopus, Elkwater, Cypress Hills, AB (Brown & Brennan 1952 - as Trombicula)
Neotrombicula microti (Ewing, 1928) – ex Yellow Pine Chipmunk (Eutamias amoneus), Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus), Southern Red-backed Vole (Myodes gapperi), and Microtus sp. – widespread in AB (Edmonton, Lac la Biche, Faust) (Brown & Brennan 1952 – as Trombicula)
Trombicula sp. ex Richardson’s Ground Squirrel (Urocitellus richardsonii (Sabine, 1822)) Brooks, Irvine, AB (Brown & Brennan 1952)

[Joe Cobb Crawford]

Great article! Also enjoyed your interview with Caroline Clemmons. Didn't know that you, like me, were raised around chickens. Are chicken mites related to chiggar mites? Loved your quote in the interview: "Timing is the most important part of a rain dance." Lots of hidden wisdom in that quote.

[Breana]

Good luck finding a "feeder leg"! Although, come to think of it, I was a feeder arm for a mosquito study at MSU... there's no end to what broke grad students will do for cash!

[Caroline Clemmons]

My husband and I grew up in Lubbock and I didn't know what chiggers were. My poor husband is like a buffet for chiggers, though. All he has to do is set foot out of the car in East Texas and he is covered, poor dear. He uses a bleach bath and Campho-phenique as remedies. On the rare occasxions when I've had one, I use clear nail polish. Another experiment would be why they cover one person and not anther standing beside the first victim.

[shirley white]

Interessting post! I can't say for sure I ever actually SAW a chigger but am well acquainted with them. Can it be TOO hot and too dry for them? We had 90 days at or over 100o this year and drought conditions and I was not bothered by them this year.

[Stehpen L. Brayton]

I remember the first day this year when we started having classes outside I noticed hundreds of these small red things swarming over the bench I was going to use. One of my students told me they were chiggers. We moved to another location.

[Augie]

Well Dac, thanks a bunch (lol) I never thought about those critters, now ya go me thinkin augie
(scratchin)

[Paige]

Well, I can't speak to tall grass or short grass, being as I'm from the coast and we just have marsh grass...but the dang chiggers seem to live in the sandy soil under the big live oaks! I spent a childhood scratching...

[Marja McGraw]

The only thing I have to worry about is mosquito bites. The little buggers seem to love me. I think I'll try to stay away from chiggers, too, just in case.

[ira guy]

I didn't know there was a chigger line as well as a gnat line. Does human life exist at the intersection?
Ira

[kitti Reynolds]

Such interesting information, DAC, people are always asking me questions about chiggers. Your post reminded me of a long ago canoe trip Lee and I did in Florida. sat on an old log to eat our lunch. That evening we were covered in chigger bites. We can laugh about it now, but we were miserable that night!

[Elizabeth Chilson]

Well... I am suspicious. I love mites!