Does My Snake Have Mites? *Pictures*

This is my first snake, I've had a bearded dragon before so this is not my first time handling reptiles.

However, this is my first experience with mites. Would anyone be able to tell me if these little black dots I see are mites or not? I noticed these black spots near her head and around the first few bands. She moves around too much for me to get a better look.

Thank you!

First of all, that's a nice looking Lavender. Are those little black dots under the surface of the scales? If so, that doesn't look like mites to me. I could be wrong, but they are normally found under the edge of the scale, not completely underneath. That's kind of strange.

I doubt it's mites. Ross is right, the mites would be under the edge of a scale. They'd get rubbed off if they were just sitting on top like that. If it's just dirt or dye it might come off with the next shed. If not, then it's probably some sort of odd pigment for an albino.

I agree with you guys there. It doesn't look like mites to me either, but rather tiny flecks of scattered melanin pigmentation. They don't look 3 demensional on the snake. It looks to be in the dermal layer of the scales to me.

As Ross and the other poster mentioned, they could esily be rubbed off if they were mites, and even their poop for that matter. And again you would also see them under all sorts of gaps in the scales. Mites are especially notorious for gathering very heavily under the chin/throat scales and around the orbit of the eye lens (brille) too, and I can't see any evidence of that in the photo either.

Anyway, it looks like melanin specks in the scales. It is considered an anomaly, or "paradox" in these cases that doesn't normally haven, but does once in a great while.


~Doug

OOPS!...I meant "happen", not haven..LOL!

Yeah it seems like they are under the scales.

Thank you everyone for the input! It was really helpful

they dont look like mites to me. I see this a lot with reptile morphs. Every now and then you get some black or drab colors popping up on the scales ( i think it might just be a result from constant inbreeding and genetic mutation, but it could be entirely unrelated) , they are usually inconsistent with each other. either way i wouldnt be worried about it. Best way to check for mites on a snake is to take a white wet paper towel and wrap it around the snake on one section, then let the snake move its entire body through it, look at the paper towel afterwards and if you see anything moving youve got mites.

And if you have mites, you will find damaged scales. They will be shriveled up. Look close. If all the scales are perfect, then you probably don't have mites.

Doug, I'm sure you are right about that.