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Another fascinating article, thank you. I've never heard of chiggers in New Zealand, and if they occur, they must be rare. I've spent a heap of time working in the outdoors and never encountered anything which could be them. It's possible that we don't have a lot of mammal-biting beasties because of our lack of native land mammals. However, that didn't prevent us getting some pretty fierce sandflies, not to mention our lethal nettles (literally lethal, but only in rare circumstances).

It's good news that the chiggers mite doesn't burrow into your skin and lay eggs there, but in the process of trying to find out whether chiggers occur in New Zealand I found that there is a mite that does that - the scabies mite. Fortunately I've never encountered that either.

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I'd say you're lucky not to have chiggers in New Zealand, but you're right -- you have enough other dangerous beasties to make up for it. When I read that "bush mites" is another name for chiggers, I wondered if that might apply to you, but perhaps they're in Australia? I can't find an answer to where they're from right away...

We have scabies here too, but they're not as prevalent as chiggers.

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Sep 15, 2022Liked by Heather Wall

So glad the temp is getting down to 60 degrees, at least in the morning!

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That's when we need to go hiking - when they're all dormant!

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I see chiggers in a whole new light now! Chigger Slurpee is a great term.

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Glad you liked it! There's so much of nature that I see in a new light since I've started using this newsletter as an excuse to explore...

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Fascinating article about chiggers! Really appreciate the info and suggestions.

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Glad you liked it!

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