One of the more disturbing realities of the microbiome is that we're literally crawling with microbes—including, yes, face mites. Face mites, or demodex, are one of the many microorganisms that ...

Most people on Earth are habitats for mites that spend the majority of their brief lives burrowed, head-first, in our hair follicles, primarily of the face. In fact, humans are the only habitat for ...

Most people on Earth are habitats for mites that spend the majority of their brief lives burrowed, head-first, in our hair follicles, primarily of the face. In fact, humans are the only habitat ...

But what about pore cleaning mites like Demodex folliculorum that spend their entire life living deep in our faces? At night, the 0.3mm long organisms leave the pores to find a new skin follicle ...

This story appears in the February 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine. Currently two species of face mites are known; at least one of them appear to be present on all adult humans.

Meet Demodex, the face mite, a microscopic arachnid that lives on human skin. The pore is its humble abode and the waxy sebum we secrete is its meal of choice. It's hard to know for sure ...