It’s a warm and humid day early in summer. You and your fellow conservationists stand before an innocent-looking field in need of some controlled clearing. The only danger, or so you think, might be the occasional wasp, bee, or tick – all bugs you see before they attack you. With little to fear, you charge in, ready to make this field a better place in the ecosystem.
But you will not leave that field alone. Attached to blades of tall grass, lurking near the tops of plants or weeds, there are predators patiently waiting to snag their first meal. Tiny larvae, so tiny they cannot be seen with the naked eye, have climbed up onto the vegetation to more easily capture their hosts. They sniff the air for the telltale waft of carbon dioxide emanating from your body. As you simply walk by or sit down for a while – they strike!
Before the day is over, you have taken on some passengers, attached and now gorging themselves, not on your blood, but on your liquefied skin. Blissfully unaware that you are hosting a dinner party at which you are the main course, you continue working for several more hours. Soon, however, tiny red bumps begin to appear that signal the start of an exquisite itching expedition, compliments of – Chiggers!
You never saw them. By the time you start developing bumps and welts, most of the chiggers have already fallen off or were knocked off when you adjusted your clothing or began scratching that strangely annoying itch. While their time on your skin is brief – usually a matter of hours - these tiniest of troublemakers cause such an intense itching that you begin to believe a bad case of poison ivy might be a relief.
What are Chiggers
Known as "Jiggers" or "Redbugs," chiggers are not bugs or any other type of insect. They are the larval form of the Trombiculidae family of mites. Closely related to ticks, these mites are arachnids like spiders and scorpions. Most numerous in early summer, when grass, weeds, and other vegetation are heaviest, these larvae dine on a wide variety of snakes, turtles, bird, mammals, and humans. Once past the larval stage, chiggers no longer live as parasites.
There are 3,000 species of chiggers throughout the world. They live in soil, leaf litter, and animal burrows. Chigger mites are orange, yellow, pale to mid-brown or sometimes red in color. Less than 1/ 150th of an inch in diameter and about 1/20 inch long, they are oval or slightly constricted in the middle. Almost invisible to the naked eye, we can only see them when several chiggers cluster together.
It’s probably a good thing that we cannot see them. They are ugly creatures, with long hairs on their bodies and legs. Oddly, the larval chigger, while a member of the arachnid family, has only six legs. It will grow two more legs as it becomes an adult.
Unlike its cousin the tick, or mosquitoes, chiggers do not drink our blood and few carry diseases in the United States. In Japan, however, chiggers transmit Tsutsugamushi Disease, also known as Scrub Typhus or Japanese River Fever. A chigger known as Akamushi, which means "dangerous bug" in Japanese, transmits this illness from rodents to humans. The itty-bitty chigger caused many medical casualties during the Asian and Pacific campaigns of World War II.
Chigger Lifecycle
How do these nasty little mites become part of our world? Female chiggers become active in the spring, laying up to 15 globularshaped eggs per day in damp soil. Once hatched, the larvae climb grass blades and other vegetation to find hosts to feed on. When fully fed, the larvae drop off and molt, becoming nymphs that grow into adults. At this stage, their dietary habits change and they feed on springtails and other small insects, along with vegetation.
A chigger’s lifecycle is 50 – 70 days, although adult females can live up to one year and produce offspring during that time period. Multiple generations develop in warmer climates, while only two or three generations occur in cooler climates.
Where Chiggers Find Us
Newly hatched chiggers lurk in areas overgrown with tall grass, weeds, or shrubby plants. They prefer low, damp areas such as woodlands, berry patches, and orchards. Chiggers are also found along lakes and streams and even in drier places such as lawns, golf courses, and parks. These tiny terrors attack campers, hikers, picnickers, berry pickers, and homeowners.
Tallgrass prairies are ideal habitat for chiggers looking for a host meal.
© Richard Baumer
Monitoring in the field: Long pants tucked into socks, long sleeves, and insect repellant are best defenses against chiggers in the field.
© Steve Sutherland
As we approach, chiggers are alerted by the odor of carbon dioxide emanating from our bodies. If we come close enough, they simply climb on board!
How Do Chiggers Feed?
Once on our bodies, chiggers immediately look for areas where skin is thin or where it wrinkles and folds. This is why the most common areas for chigger bites are ankles, backs of knees, crotches, under belt-lines or in armpits.
Their favorite feeding locations on humans are parts of the body where clothing fits tightly over skin: belt lines, waistlines, underwear, and under socks. They attach where flesh is thin, tender or wrinkled – such as the ankles, armpits, back of the knees, front of elbow, and in the groin.
Chiggers do not suck blood, nor do they burrow into our skin and die. Actually, chiggers attach themselves by piercing our skin with minute specialized mouthparts at hair follicles or skin pores. Once attached, they inject saliva containing a digestive enzyme that dissolves skin cells, liquefying our tissue.
We usually do not notice chiggers for one to three hours after they start feeding. During this time, chiggers continually inject their digestive enzymes, eating a long narrow tunnel into our skin. After a few hours, our skin mounts a defense against this onslaught by hardening the cells around the saliva path, forming a hard, tube-like structure called a stylostome. While the stylostome protects the rest of your skin from the corrosive saliva, it also acts as a straw for the hungry chigger. The chigger sits with its mouthpiece attached at the upper end of the tunnel and quietly continues to inject saliva and drink up liquid tissue.
Normally, chiggers require three to four days to become fully engorged and drop off. This is, after all, the first and last meal at this stage of its young life. On human hosts, however, chiggers rarely get the chance to finish their meal. They are usually brushed or washed away, or scratched off long before their meal is complete. If a chigger is disconnected from its host before it is fully engorged, it cannot bite again and will die.
Once bitten, the itching usually peaks within a day or two due to the stylostome, which remains imbedded in our skin tissue long after the Chigger is gone. This allergic reaction, or chigger dermatitis, results in large, raised red spots that itch severely as the stylostome is slowly absorbed by our bodies – a process that can take seven to ten days, or even longer. The welt is red with a white, hard central area. Welts, swelling, itching and, sometimes, fever develop three to six hours after the bite and may continue for a week or longer. Avoid scratching your bites because breaking the skin can result in secondary infections.
Prevention and Treatment
The best prevention is to stay away from the chiggers’ turf. Mowing briars, weeds, and thick vegetation and keeping your grass closely clipped will help eliminate chigger populations from your area. Keep moving – it’s easy for chiggers to climb aboard when you are sitting or lying down. If possible, stay on roads or cleared trails.
If you have to be in a weedy, overgrown area, tuck your pants into your socks. (Wearing shorts is just begging those chiggers to feast on you!) Apply repellent to both your skin and clothing, especially on your hands, arms or legs, and to clothing openings at cuffs, neck, waistband, and upper edges of your socks. Deet-based repellents, such as OFF, Muskol, or Repel, are only effective for a few hours and must be reapplied. Always follow the instructions on the label. Do not wear dog or cat flea collars on your ankles or cattle ear tags on your shoes! These items are toxic and dangerous for humans and can also result in skin burns.
After working or hiking in an area where there might be chiggers, immediately launder your clothing for about half an hour in hot, soapy water of at least 125 degrees F. If you can, hand the clothing outside in hot sunshine. Inadequate laundering will not kill the chiggers and you may find yourself under attack from within your clothing.
As soon as possible, take a hot bath or shower, soaping yourself repeatedly to dislodge any chiggers on your body. Unfortunately, the damage is done and you will still have the stylostomes in your skin, which will cause severe itching. The sooner you begin treating your bites, the sooner you will feel better. Apply benzocaine or hydrocortisone creams, calamine lotion, New Skin, After Bite, ChiggerRid or any number of other anti-itch products recommended by your pharmacist or doctor. Some people use Vaseline, cold cream, baby oil, or fingernail polish.
With care, you can avoid becoming a feast for the tiny, terrible chigger and enjoy an itch-free summer.
"Probably no creature on earth can cause as much torment for its size than the tiny chigger." - William F. Lyon
jiggers/chiggers (info)
- Thread starter JB
- Start date
noharleyyet
Well-known member
JB, did you get crabs from the bus station toilet seat again?
not me this time NHY.
Me and my bro-inlaw were working on some stands and he got nailed by a batch of chiggers.....he called me the next morning asking if I had them.
after I finished laughing I told him "nope, I didnt get them".
he's got over 100 bites on his legs and back. I asked him, "didnt you spray down"? He said "yeah, but i used this cheap crap and it must not of worked".
more laughing from me and a couple F U's from him.
poor bastard!
Me and my bro-inlaw were working on some stands and he got nailed by a batch of chiggers.....he called me the next morning asking if I had them.
after I finished laughing I told him "nope, I didnt get them".
he's got over 100 bites on his legs and back. I asked him, "didnt you spray down"? He said "yeah, but i used this cheap crap and it must not of worked".
more laughing from me and a couple F U's from him.
poor bastard!
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