Ok, I Have Found The Mites!

Caviar on a leaf?  So, a few weeks ago, I found what I thought was a fungus growing on some leaves.  I think they are growing on downy birch, (Betula pubescens)  I thought the fungus was not mature yet.  also I wanted to do thinner sections of the leaf to see if the growths were INSIDE the leaf tissue

The little pink blobs are about a 1/2 a millimeter high on the surface of the half a millimeter thick leaf.

Little hollow trumpets with pink blobs at the top.  What will they grow into?  dunno!  I can't tell if the fungal tissue is growing INSIDE the leaf.  can't see leaf cells niether!  need thinner section.  don't see any cells in the fungus either!  maybe is NOT a fungus.  Time will tell.

I could see hints of vascular tissue (tubes for water and nutrients, the plant's circulatory system) in the cross section tho.  each tube is one cell thick.

I think the large circles are cross sections of Xylem, the tubes that ship up water from the roots.  The Phloem, the tubes that the leaf sends food back down to the plant in, should be below.  

Well I soon found out that they were NOT fungus.  

What i thought was a fungus on the tree leaves, turns out to be the leaves reacting to being fed on by an Eriophyrid mite! Mites are related to ticks. some, you have seen, like these cute velvety red ones: about a millimeter long. u see them crawling everywhere even under water.  If you look under leaves and in rotting logs and in dirt you find tons of little round mites of all sorts...

 

from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trombidium.spec.1706.jpg

 

most, you don't see, as they are much less than a millimeter and hide, like hair follicle mites, house dust mites or plant gall mites. 4000 kinds of those. feed on plants and the plants get annoyed and make Galls around them.

 

 

Anyway, I've been told that my purple/salmon blob 'fungus' on (probly) Downy Birch leaves is the leaves being disturbed by 1/5th of a millimeter long mites, Acalitus longisetosus

https://bladmineerders.nl/.../acal.../acalitus-longisetosus/

I will have to look at the leaves closely and find the mites! tho maybe they are only active spring and fall!

 

They will look something like this: (from https://bladmineerders.nl/parasites/animalia/arthropoda/acari/actinotrichida/prostigmata/eleutherengona/eriophyoidea/eriophyidae/eriophyinae/acerini/acalitus/acalitus-brevitarsus/)

 

 Update: (18 March 2021) I found the mites!  Here's one crawling around in the purple blobs.

And here is a beautiful shot lit fro the side with dark backround of the mite scraped off of its leaf.  Mites in the family Eriophyidae only have 4 legs (most mites, like spiders, have 8).  Look at those beautiful bands going down the mite!  I guess it has long setoses...

HAHA!  my first parasitic mite discovery!  Now I am on to them.