We always find exciting, humorous, interesting and surprising postings on social media. It's often these little viral posts that, apart from the many political content on social media, give us a lot more fun. As well as this recent posting about a little guy named Demodex. In this posting we read:

This cute little guy is called Demodex, he is 0.03mm tall and he lives on our face. His habitat is mainly on his nose, chin and forehead 😊 He is there 24 hours a day and will be there forever. At night, he mates with his fellow birds directly on our face, he then lays eggs in our skin pores and feeds on our sebum and dead skin cells. The remarkable thing is that Demodex does not have an anal opening for excreting feces. He just eats and eats until he bursts and dies... right on your face .😅❤

Source: Facebook

Below this interesting and humorous text is a supposed photo of the Demodex described. This is a highly enlarged photo from an electron microscope. This makes the enlarged animal look much more impressive. Note: The posting uses a photo that we cannot reproduce for licensing reasons. Therefore HERE is the link to the picture, or you can find another place on Facebook under the screenshot where this picture can also be seen.

Demodex: Correct description, wrong picture!
Demodex: Correct description, wrong picture!

About Demodex

First, let's look at the story of the little glutton who ends up bursting in all of our faces because he ate too much and couldn't pass the feces. Demodex is a mite. In a press release about the disease rosacea we find the following information:

Demodex folliculorum is the scientific term for the hair follicle mite. It is tiny and cannot be seen with the naked eye: The Demodex mite lives in hair follicles and sebaceous glands and feeds on sweat and sebum. When present normally, the mite supports sebum production and thus protects the skin from diseases and chemicals. This ensures that the hair and the top layer of skin remain supple. So it is generally harmless and can be found on the chin, forehead, cheeks, temples and nose of almost everyone - around 90% of the world's population.

source

OK. So the mite really lives on our faces and that's perfectly fine and apparently a good thing. So there's no reason to suddenly feel an itch on your cheeks. Nevertheless, the hair follicle mite always seems to cause a stir, especially because it lives on people's faces. An article on “Discovermgazine.com” sums it up in the headline: “Everything You Never Wanted to Know About the Mites That Eat, Crawl and Have Sex on Your Face.” The article describes that Demodex likes to live in places that are particularly rich in sebum, where it eats, moves, and also reproduces there... and in the end it actually bursts because the mites have no intestinal anus:

They don't poo! The mite has no anus, and stores its waste in large cells within its gut. Nutting saw these as adaptations for a life spent head-down in a tightly closed space. When the mite dies, its body disintegrates and the waste is released.

Source Discover magazine

According to Discover Magazine, it remains unclear whether Demodex really feeds on sebum, as described in the posting on Facebook. The article does not assume that they eat suet because such a diet is not nutritious enough. Instead, it is explained, they feed on the cells lining the follicle and suck out their innards using a retractable needle in the center of a round mouthpiece.

Apart from that, everything in the posting is correct so far, one might think. Or maybe not? Well, unfortunately not quite. The story is already dramatic enough, but to increase the drama, an image depicting a small “monster” was added to the viral posting. But unfortunately, this animal pictured is not a Demodex.

The photo in the posting shows a silk moth caterpillar!

As I said, the humorously told story is basically okay. However, the picture shows a silk moth caterpillar. Or rather, it's the caterpillar's head magnified 31x. This is a colored scanning electron microscope image. This was created by Nicole Ottawa & Oliver Meckes ( Eye of Science ). References can be HERE or HERE on page 31 of the catalog.

And if any questions arise: No, the caterpillar doesn't live on your face!

This might also be of interest : In Poland there will be an official postage stamp with the portrait of Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelensky, the proceeds of which will go to Ukraine for humanistic purposes. But this stamp doesn't really exist. Continue reading …


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )