Help! Cricket mites???

[ammr3b]

I bought a small box of 20 crickets today for my leopard gecko. I tossed all of the crickets into a small 10 gallon tank then placed my gecko inside to see how he would do but he’s partially blind and had trouble seeing them. Instead I picked them up to prong feed. One of the crickets was missing a few legs and didn’t move well so I stuck it in his bowl. Several tiny round black bugs (so small I can’t get a picture of them) fell off the cricket on impact and started running around the bowl. I looked in the tank and blew on the 12 or so remaining crickets and saw a few more. Some were black and I saw one white one. Are they mites? Should I be concerned? This is my first time having a gecko that needed crickets in about 5 years but when my crested was a juvenile I got them every other week and never saw this.

 

[acpart]

I doubt they re mites. They are probably fruit flies, which seem, unfortunately, to accompany the crickets (wait till you get fruit fly maggots!). If they're not fruit flies and if the crickets are larger adults, they may be baby crickets. The fruit flies won't do any harm, if that's what they are, they are just an annoyance. If you have baby crickets, they will probably not survive because they'll provably get dehydrated.

Aliza

 

[ammr3b]

No wings and smaller than a fruit fly. The crickets are small but not babies by any means so I suppose they could be babies. They were REALLY small and the black ones were perfectly round. Are there any signs to look for in regards to mites just in case?

 

[acpart]

Not a clue. I've never heard of crickets being infested with mites, unless you count grain mites that are obviously infesting the grain. Those are white and look more like surging white fuzz!

Aliza