Not like mosquitoes, ticks, and different biting bugs, chiggers don’t burrow into your pores and skin to suck blood, although that is a standard false impression.
“They really chunk on the hair follicle,” says Elmer Grey, PhD, an entomologist on the College of Georgia in Athens, who’s based mostly in Arnoldsville, Georgia.
The tiny mites pierce the pores and skin with their sharp mouthparts and inject a digestive enzyme that helps them break down and digest pores and skin cells for meals.
As a result of their chunk “may cause some swelling across the chunk website, that makes it seem like the chigger has burrowed into the pores and skin,” he says.
This swelling might seem as redness or discoloration, clear pustules, or bumps. The bumps might resemble small pimples or hives.
Inform Chigger Bites From Different Bug Bites
“It’s almost not possible to distinguish between several types of insect or arthropod bites,” Dr. Grey says.
Particularly if you happen to’re bitten by a lone chigger, the pink welt that varieties might look kind of equivalent to a mosquito chunk.
Not like a mosquito chunk, although, a chigger chunk most likely gained’t be observed instantly — it could possibly take a couple of hours or extra for it to begin itching.
And as with all bug bites, reactions to chigger bites might differ amongst completely different folks, says Jonathan Larson, PhD, an assistant professor of extension entomology on the College of Kentucky, which is situated in Lexington.
“Individuals can develop into sensitized to bites and begin to react extra; some folks all the time have the identical response, others might by no means react in any respect,” he says.
That stated, chiggers are inclined to latch onto an individual’s pores and skin in teams, versus a single mosquito chunk. Because of this, the bites typically seem as a line or cluster of pink welts.
Additionally they are usually intensely itchy, which could offer you one other clue about which sort of bug bit you.
And the placement of your bites may give you a touch about whether or not they’re from chiggers.
