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- Mites are small crawling animals related to ticks and spiders. Most mites are free-living and harmless. Other mites are parasitic, and those that infest livestock animals cause many diseases that are widespread, reduce production and profit for farmers, and are expensive to control. Mites are invertebrates, arthropods with a chitinous exoskeleton and jointed limbs. Within the Arthropoda, they belong in the subclass Acari (or Acarina) and species belonging to the Acari are informally known as acarines. Although both acarines and insects (class Insecta) are studied in the fields of veterinary and medical parasitology, acarines are separated from insects by structure, feeding, lifecycles, and disease relations. Both livestock and companion animals are susceptible to mite infestation and although this article will focus on livestock, the two are similar. Humans also may become infested by contagion from these domestic animals (a zoonosis). Infestation by mites usually causes skin diseases known as mange, scab, demodecosis, or in general as acariasis. The causation, economic impact, and control of these diseases in livestock are described in this article. Mites that cause disease in honey bees are described in Varroa destructor. (en)
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