jmkosanovich's Identifications

These mites have ABSOLUTELY INFESTED my 40gal hermit crab terrarium under my nose. There are piles of them on the floor of the tank, they loosely cover the glass walls, and even are found on the mesh lid and on the outer walls of the terrarium. Quick searches on common infestation sources of terrariums suggest grain mites but again I don’t have any way of being sure since I don’t really do mite identifications. I don’t know anything about mites but they seem mainly interested in the food bowls and not particularly in the crabs. I’m sure the crabs, resident isopods, and resident springtails aren’t happy with them crawling everywhere and eating all the food, though.

I had hoped they may be booklice because I could get extra credit for my entomology collection project, however unfortunately I now have no extra credit but still have an infestation on my hands, haha.

Would love to know what they are, if they’re harmful, what to do about them, etc. if anyone can throw it out there.

Additionally, if by chance you need better pictures (its hard to take clear images of 3D critters like this on my compound scope, especially since I’m inexperienced), I can take more images with the scope focused on specific aspects of the organisms. Just let me know. I’ll also bring them in to my ENTO lab this Wednesday to try and take pictures under a dissecting scope to see if they treat me any better.