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In a recent issue of Allergo Journal International, K.-C. Bergmann published a mini-review on the biology of house dust mites and storage mites [1]. This excellently written article made us wonder about the potential fauna present in our imaging facilities.
As opposed to biolabs and chemical labs, imaging facilities contain a wealth of dust. Not only are cleaning rules for such facilities less strict, most, if not all, physicists prefer that cleaning staff do not touch any equipment at these facilities.
The purpose of this study was to literally zoom in on a dust flake that had fallen onto a preparation slide.
The microscopic slide used for imaging had been prepared the same way as those prepared for scanning electron microscopy published in a prior study [2]. The resulting scanning electron microscope image is shown in Fig. 1a.
The genitalia were indeed absent. Instead, the closeup of the ventral area between the third leg pair shows two pairs of genital papillae [3], as demonstrated in Fig. 1b.
For illustrative purposes, we have added closeups of the head, the first and second pairs of legs, the posterior margin, and a pore in the posterior margin, all shown in Fig. 2.
In summary, Bergmann (2022) [1] may have inadvertently given imaging physicists an additional reason to avoid cleaning their facilities: to image most interesting microfauna.
References
Bergmann K‑C. Biology of house dust mites and storage mites. Allergo J Int. 2022;31:272–8.
Kudo N, Uzbekov R, Matsumoto R, Shimizu R‑i, Carlson CS, Anderton N, Deroubaix A, Penny C, Poortinga AT, Rubin DM, Bouakaz A, Postema M. Asymmetric oscillations of endoskeletal antibubbles. Jpn J Appl Phys. 2020;59:SKKE2.
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Colloff MJ. Taxonomy and identification of dust mites. Allergy. 1998;53(Suppl. 48):7–12.
Funding
The scanning electron microscope data were obtained with the aid of the IBiSA Electron Microscopy Facility of the University of Tours and the University Hospital of Tours.
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa, grant no. 127 102, and by the Academy of Finland, grant no. 340 026, and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 665 790.
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Open access funding provided by Tampere University including Tampere University Hospital, Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TUNI).
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R. Uzbekov, A. Bouakaz, and M. Postema declare that they have no competing interests.
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Uzbekov, R., Bouakaz, A. & Postema, M. Closeups of a not-so-domestic mite tritonymph. Allergo J Int 32, 337–339 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40629-023-00249-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40629-023-00249-6