What Are Mites?

Mites are very small animals that cannot be seen in any detail by the naked eye. They are so small that how they interact with other animals including human beings is still poorly understood. These creatures are seemingly omnipresent and must be considered our neighbors. The goal of this book is to present the wonderful lives of these barely visible organisms from an evolutionary and behavioral ecology perspective. In this chapter, after a basic introduction about mite taxonomy, the author suggests the most important peculiarities of mites are their small, wingless and eyeless bodies.