The tragic life of an animal that lives at the tips of our hair

I’m going to assume you’re not eating at the moment. And if not, I advise you to stop doing it for a while. Because what’s up…

…the disappearance of different species of mites occurs 1,000 times faster than they should naturally and that is bad news, because we cannot live without them. Well, there is one mite that helps us, but it has a tragic life of its own. Insects live on the ends of our hair. When we’re asleep at night, they travel to our faces, where they start frantically cleaning things like dead skin cells. They are also looking for a new partner.

That still sounds pretty fun, doesn’t it? But what’s so pathetic about these mites: Because they only have a small digestive system and – to be precise – there’s no way out in the back, they get full at some point. So full that it eventually explodes.

These same mites contain bacteria, which then land on our faces and can cause red spots. So the next time you wake up with a weird spot on your forehead, think about no-anal mites, thank them for vacuuming, and realize we need every one of them. Whether deep in the rainforest or at the tips of our hair.

Listen also: It’s a bad time for moths.