Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A friend has just urgently contacted me with a possible problem that has stumped me. He's been incubating this clutch of corn eggs for a few weeks now. Apparently he noticed a nodule (shaped like a Smartie or m&m sweet) growing on the top of one of the eggs, but didn't think anything of it as another friend of ours has hatched some odd shaped eggs this year. However he looked in today and seen this lump had "exploded" and the entire clutch is now covered in thousands of tiny white mite-like creatures, smaller than a pin head.

He's incubating on vermiculite and moss and all the other eggs seem fine, with the exception of the mites which appear to have come from this other egg.

He has no sign of snake mites or any other parasites in his collection, but is now worried that they are going to affect the other eggs, and possibly the entire collection.

I have suggested he tries to get some of these "mites" in a sealed container and get them identified, but until then has anyone heard of anything like this before? And if so, what advice can you offer? I have my suspicions that whatever these are they may have come from the moss he's using, but I'm really not sure.

Fly larvae. Happened to me my first year - and they only affected eggs that had gone bad.

In my case, they were little tiny black and white flies that were about the size of fruit flies.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

The larvae of flies are maggots, not mites.
It sounds like the person who orginally posted has some sort of mite, though I know of no kind that comes from or attacks eggs.
I suspect that the humidity in the incubation box is to their liking and they're reproducing.
It's probably just incidental that they're in with the snake eggs.

Tim

Third Eye

Initially when he looked in and seen white moving things he thought they were worms, to which I assumed fly larvae as well, but upon closer inspection he says they have legs, are spider-like in appearance and are scuttling round like mites.

I'm trying to get more info from him on this, and if possible get a look at some of these mites, so will keep you posted.

After a bit of extremely disgusting dissection I can confirm that the critters are mites. However, we took apart the egg that had "exploded" and there seemed to be nothing amiss. There was an embryo in the egg, but it was dead.

There was another egg he removed from the clutch which had an usual growth starting on the end of the shell in the same fashion as the "exploded" one, which we dissected as well, but there was nothing obvious there other than a perfectly formed snake embryo

There seemed to be a lot of mites clustering round one of the rotten eggs and in the vermiculite, but none on the healthy egg we dissected. The mites themselves varied in size, but there were some fairly large ones (by mite standards), with some approx. the size of adult snake mites. They were white/clear though, with brown legs and mouthparts and under the 'scope we could see they had some long hairs portruding off their bodies.

We have suspicions that the mites have been residing in the substrate, possibly something happened to the original snake egg that it burst and the mites emerged from the substrate to feed on the dead egg. This is just a theory though, if anyone has any info we'd appreciate it.

Why did you open the eggs and not let them continue to incubate?,.....Those were probably perfectly good eggs with perfectly good embryos in them. It sounds like the nasty little bugs/mites, or whatever they are simply attached their egg sac to the snake egg out of convenience of the location, and didn't affect the snake eggs at all.....other than having a gross looking nodule attached. After these pests hatched, didn't the snake eggs they were on still look decent?

I would take the egg container outside ASAP!, and carefully collect all the eggs after marking the tops of any loose eggs with pen(so they DON'T get accidentally rotated), brush all those nasty bugs/mites of with a fine small brush, then place them into another freshly made container of vermiculite/Perlite, and be done with it. Of course I would also keep a very close eye on everything afterwards too, as I would want to know EXACTLY what those little ba$tard$ were in the first place.

Hopefully they were some sort of "garden variety" bug/mite, and not snake mites. There are many different kinds.

best regards, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

It seems there WERE an obvious bad egg or two, so if this was the case, I apologize for the first part of my reply.

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Sorry I should've clarified - there was a bad egg plus the egg that "exploded" (the embryo was dead by the time the guy found it apparently) and the 3rd egg which seemed healthy apart from this odd lump. The guy was worried it was going to go the same way as the bust one, so he removed it from the clutch with the other 2 eggs for investigation. He was worried that these mites were inside the egg (in the lump), and were therefore going to burst out and infest the rest of the clutch.

The lump actually looked like it was growing out of the egg - kinda like the odd lumps and bumps that appear on eggs sometimes, but the reason my friend was concerned with this apparently healthy egg was the lump was appearing in the exact same place and shape as the one that apparently burst.

The remainder of the clutch has been cleaned and new substrate placed in with them. We've collected a number of mite samples to try and get them identified, so will keep you posted.

n/p
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

everything in the world is covered in mites......it's actually a pretty fair thing to say..

reptile mites feed on reptile blood.....

dust mites......obviously eat dust .....and they in turn are attacked by predetory mites that eat dust mites.

anyways....wood has wood eating mites and dirt has all kinds of mites.....we are covered in mites that eat out dead cells....

your eggs had soft spots.....not enough shell covering the ends.....not enough calcium in the shell on the end even......

all the eggs are lined up in the oviducts and they touch each other ......the shells tend to not cover the ends in between the touching eggs due to them touching each other too much?....

it happens ......so......yours had ends that were weak.....the mites came from the moss and dirt and ate at the fluids they could get from the thin shells themselves.......they ate so much that they compromised the shells even more.....and they exploded..........either that or you them way too wet? and it helped them expand too much......

so they ate till they thinned out the shells, then the eggs leaked even more....so that's why you saw the bloom of mites all over the end of the egg, after it leaks, they all can run around and lay eggs all over the place,,,,....

wipe of eggs and change substrate....use perlite or vermiculite and no moss......you should actually have no more troubles....just keep an eye on the thin ends of the eggs......wipe them dry with a tissue even.......

have fun......

wait till you get them forrid flies DM talked about......or actual fruit flies eating into the shells.......mmmmmmmmmm.....

I hate bugs......but I hate chemicals (to kill them ) even more.......

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they will be some other sort of parasite as snake mites only lay their eggs at the higher points of the container they dont lay eggs on their host or food source. they may be another form of mite that has differant charecteristics but i would lean away from snake mites.
adam jeffery
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" a.k.a. farfrumugen "
When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car.