Attack Attack Little Monsters
Microscopic Mites

In Grade Five, we watched a documentary about microscopic bugs that live with and on the human body. The one I remember most vividly and with the most horror are the “eyelash worms” that curl up all snug n’ cozy in our eyelash follicles. My mom told me that I had made it up, but in fact Demodex parasitic mites do indeed inhabit our faces. It’s kind of creepy to think about what creatures live on us, in our pores and mouths, and that we suck in with each breath. After that elementary school day of awakening, I never looked at my mite-infested pillow the same again. Each night I rested my face on it, I thought of the millions of hungry little bugs munching away on my sloughing skin. Pretty fucking nasty, and Nature thought of it! Everything has its use. And then there are the “cute” little insects – the ants and caterpillars – that seem so tiny and harmless and fuzzy; when you look at any of these things face to face, blown up by a microscope, you see it’s true ghastly visage. I think my favorite one is the maggot’s face, it looks just like what I would imagine these fat, dumb white worms to look like, with a kind of “duh” expression. Check out a bunch of little monsters below…

Maggot

Cleptoparasitic Bee

A head lice clinging to a human hair

A wasp’s head

Embryonic Zebrafish

Caterpillar

Hydrothermal worm

Eyelash mite

Mosquito eye

Water Bear

Swollen tick

Marine worm

Ant face

Marine worm

Water mite