What are two-spotted spider mites?
Two-spotted spider mites are minute (<0.002 inch), green to yellowish to orange arachnids (see close-up photos below). Note the 8 legs, not 6 like insects, and the two spots on the abdomen. To put their size in perspective, spider mite adults are ca. half the size or less of the smallest soybean aphid nymph you've been looking at this week. These mites attack a wide variety of plants, including crops (soybeans, dry beans, alfalfa, and corn, vegetables, ornamentals, and trees. Mites overwinter as eggs in permanent vegetation. Hatching mites establish colonies on the undersides of leaves that produce the webbing over the leave surface (see photo on right). This webbing earns them the name "spider" mites. Figure 1. Life cycle of the twospotted spider mite: egg, larva, protonymph, deutonymph and adult Spidermites have a straightforward life cycle, progressing through three stages between egg and adult (see Fig. 1). Their development is completed in 5 to 19 days, depending on temperature. D
