Found a cute little critter crawling around on the edge of a mushroom today. Fortunately, I had my camera, and I got a fairly decent macro shot of the little beastie:

While it looks like a red aphid, at 1/16th of an inch it was too big for most aphids, and also too big to be a chigger.

It turned out to be a red velvet mite:

Though lovely to the eye, red velvet mites are disliked by the palate: their color may warn predators to the mites' unpleasant taste. "There are stories about biologists popping them into their mouths," says George Hammond, a University of Michigan graduate student who studies velvet mites. Other than ill-advised scientists, however, he knows of no natural enemies of these arachnids: "I've put them on an anthill and no ant would touch them."

Here's a huge red mite I wouldn't want to touch -- much less eat:

I'd feel sorry for the lady holding the whip, but she must know the power of her own mite.

UPDATE (11/16/06): According to Glenn Reynolds, the mitey monster has agreed to wallow in "total crap," but only because of the lady with the whip.

They can't be serious, can they?

(I really should have titled this post "Of Mites and Men.")