There are mites that live in our pores, mate on our faces, and are now merging with our bodies.
And short of a Zombie Apocolopyse, I can't imagine anything more gross, but this is actually happening right now. To you. And me.
See this handsome individual?
Its formal name is Demodex folluculorum and it’s a microscopic mite so tiny it sleeps inside the pores on our faces. And our faces are also where it mates, gives birth to even more mites, and now, scientists say, it is becoming one with us.
That’s the upshot of a scientific paper published in Molecular Biology and Evolution. This tiny metazoan that lives continuously on humans is evolving from a parasite that feeds on us to becoming a “symbiont”—in other words, a permanent part of our anatomy.
It’s an evolutionary process much like the way the mitochondria in our cells morphed from being free-living bacteria into an integral part of our bodies.
These strange—and let’s be honest, supremely ugly—critters have life-spans measured in days. They are born on us, procreate on us, and die on us. Mostly, they live inside our pores, coming out only at night while we are asleep to find other critters of their kind to mate with.
So, yeah, while you’re snoozing, these characters are roaming about your face having sex.
So, what good do they do us, if anything? That’s not entirely clear, but they may help keep our pores open by eating our dead skin. As if that’s supposed to be comforting.
If you are so inclined, your can read more about this in the excellent newsletter, Science Alert.
And pleasant dreams.
J.C. Bruce is a journalist and author of The Strange Files series of mysterious novels (available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, other online booksellers, and at selected libraries). He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and Florida, and was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from Miami’s Lightgate Institute of Extranormal Studies, which he totally made up for his book Strange Timing — recently named Florida Book of the Year.
Sponsored by TROPIC PRESS, publisher of The Strange Files Series of Mysterious Adventures.
