Face Mites Recording Your Ancestry

The mites that live on your face are related to ticks and spiders. They eat your skin oil, hide in your pores, and have sex on your face while you sleep. These microscopic arachnids, mainly Demodex folliculorum and Demodex brevis, spend their lives inside hair follicles and oil glands, feeding on sebum. Researchers collect and analyze their DNA to trace patterns of human migration and ancestry, because mite lineages tend to stay within families over many generations. Your personal mite community can therefore act like a tiny, crawling record of where your ancestors came from.

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