Mites on Newts?

A few years ago I lost some of my C.o. juveniles. I don't know what has happened but a day after the last check the moss substrate simply dried out abnormally quick, and the animals which didn't burrowed themselves into the ground died. When I checked them I also noticed lots of tiny white or light brown creatures, supposedly mites mostly on the bodies but some on the ground too. Later I also found these creatures on living and healthy newts (terrestrial of course), but in smaller quantities. They usually came when the temperature became high at summer and the ventilation of my earlier terrariums/boxes weren't good enough.

My question is that really mites what I've seen or maybe they were some kind of springtails or something like them?

I just asked it because I think they surely are mites but I remember I was tell that mites don't appear on amphibians (which seems untrue due to an amphibian health page what I checked following a link on this site, however they are only mentioning two cases when mites were found on specific frog species). I have no access to a microscope, so I can't tell it myself, but maybe some of you also experienced this problem. I don't know if those animals actually harm the newts or just live on them and in their environment, but it's sure that healthy specimens remain healthy even they are on them.

The photo is competely normal - when an animal dies, its body is covered by mites, and any other "decomposers" that are in the vicinity. I have seen this too.

I have also seen an occasional live mite or springtail on a live animal. But I think these are just "coincidental" occurrences - they walk over the newt just like they walk over everything else in the enclosure. They are not staying on the newt or harming it.

To reduce mite problems, be sure that all uneaten food is removed right away (unless it is live food). And change the substrate at regular intervals. When I see a mite on a newt, this is one of the signals that it's time for a substrate change.

I would also mention that there are wild parasitic mites that have been known to affect caudates, not just frogs. But these are usually found on the toes or the legs of the salamander, and they stay there, they don't move all over. And they are specialized species of mites, not the kind you'd find in ordinary soil.

Thanks for the answer! Regular cleaning is surely a must. I feed my juveniles only with live fruitflies, or when this incident occured, with pinhead crickets. However I think the dried sphagnum moss started to rot and along with the temperature and low ventilation it helped these creatures to breed.

I don't no why people say that mites can't appear on amphibians due to the anatomy of their skin and their lifestyle. Anyway, the mites I've seen were actually hanging on the armpits of the newts and rarely moved, just like the parasites you mentioned above. I thought they must have introduced by the crickets. By the way, what do you think, are the mites living in fruitfly cultures harmful to the newts or to the fruitflies?

I think it is very unlikely that mites from fruit fly cultures would infect any amphibian. If they did, then we'd be hearing of this problem all the time.

If the mites were staying in the armpit area, then this is cause for concern. Did you get rid of them?

Yes, I put the newts into a small box (like the one on the picture) and sprayed them with water to wash off the mites. They stayed in the box with a few millimeter deep water until I finished the full cleaning of the terrarium. Sometimes I had to repeat this shower to fully get rid of them. Since then they've got only very few mites sometimes.