Microscopic Mites Might Be On Your Face Right Now

Believe it or not, right now, there might be some mites making a home on your face.

Recent findings published in the journal PLOS ONE show that these tiny, eight-legged creatures could be hanging out a bit too close for comfort.

"Within our samples, 100 percent of people over 18 years of age appear to host at least one Demodex species, suggesting that Demodex mites may be universal associates of adult humans," said lead study author Megan Thoemmes of the Department of Biological Sciences and W.M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology at the North Carolina State University, in a news release.

For the study, researchers found that Demodex, creatures that are relatives of spiders and ticks that thrive on the skin of mammals and live on people's hair follicles eating oil produced by the skin, were in 100 percent of the DNA from all of the participants in the experiment.

Researchers also found that many humans were more likely to have two types of microscopic arachnids that are not closely related, known as the Demodex brevis and Demodex folliculorum, which can also live on human faces.

While it's still unclear how these tiny mites got so "up close and personal," one current theory is that the creatures are passed from mother to child during breast feeding. It's also quite possible that this has been going on for a very long time, according to study researcher Michelle Trautwein of the California Academy of Sciences.

"We want to know if Demodex DNA can provide a reflection of our own evolutionary history by allowing us to retrace those ancient paths of human migration," Trautwein added. "So far, our analyses look promising. When looking at the DNA from one of our mite species, D. brevis, we found that mites from China are genetically distinct from mites from the Americas."

Rest-assured, these microscopic mites are unlikely to cause harm.