#demodex

I'm willing to bet that a lot of cybertronians would initially be grossed out by demodex mites. If you don't know, demodex mites are microscopic parasitic arachnids that live on mammals' skin and feed on dead skin, hair/fur follicles, and natural oils. All humans have a population of these little guys nesting around our faces and hair. While demodex mites are parasites and infestations can happen, they're typically harmless and a perfectly normal part of life.

I personally think demodex mites are cute and I'm so glad that I get to share space with such interesting creatures, so of course I would happily pester all of my transformers friends with this fact.

From the perspective of a mechanical being, though... yeah it's not surprising that our metal friends would cringe. I enjoy picturing Ratchet being reluctant to touch humans because, of all the things that he finds gross about us, he now knows that there's tiny little creatures burrowed into our hair follicles at all times. Fucking ew. Optimus why do you like these things??? They have BUGS.

Especially since cybertronians don't really have stuff like that. As far as I'm aware, there are no commensal or symbiotic relationships that their species has, so all they have to compare this kind of thing to are parasites, which are usually lethal to them. Scraplets are fatal. Those weird plants from G1 that ate metal and reproduced like crazy (and also tentacle-fucked Perceptor), were fatal.

"Hey. Hey. Wanna hear about my bugs? Aw, c'mon, you know you wanna hear about my bugs. My cute little guys? My tiny babie-"

For the purposes of this blog, yes! But that only means that they need more attention and appreciation, especially since they're so dang cute!

Imagine being a demodex follicularis, watching your beautiful child sleep, nestled safe in the warm depths of a hair root, washed clean and fed by the sebum gland, as a herd of D. brevis graze by on the great plane of the cheek, over the pores where your most ancient ancestors have lived for a thousand generations and where your descendants - Your sleeping child's children, and grandchildren, for another thousand generations - will live. Feeling the pulse of the living earth around you as the sky above you sails through uncountable colours - Light, dark, distant, close, through tremendous cold that makes the earth rear up around you into barrows ten times your height, and heat that makes it run with salt water and oil - but being kept safely warm by the constant beat of the earth's pulse and the infinite sough of its hot breath. And knowing that your world was alive! Had a mind and dreams and a family like your own... How beautiful!

Demodex canis

The Demodex life cycle is key to understanding how these tiny mites affect human skin. Spanning about 14 to 16 days, the Demodex life cycle begins when females lay eggs inside hair follicles or sebaceous glands. Within 60 hours, larvae hatch and mature into adults over the next seven days. This rapid progression makes the Demodex life cycle a critical factor in issues like rosacea, acne, and hair loss.