Sarcoptes scabiei

Sarcoptes scabiei
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Chelicerata
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Sarcoptiformes
Family:	Sarcoptidae
Genus:	Sarcoptes
Species:	S. scabiei
Binomial name
Sarcoptes scabiei (Linnaeus, 1758)

Sarcoptes scabiei (/sɑːrˈkɒptiːz skeɪˈbiːaɪ/ Traditional English pronunciation of Latin) or the itch mite is a parasitic mite found in all parts of the world that burrows into skin and causes scabies. Humans become infested by Sarcoptes scabiei var. hominis;^[1] other mammals can be infested with different varieties of the mite. They include wild and domesticated dogs and cats (in which it is one cause of mange), ungulates, wild boars, bovids, wombats,^[2] koalas, and great apes.^[3]

The Italian biologists Giovanni Cosimo Bonomo and Diacinto Cestoni showed in the 17th century that scabies is caused by Sarcoptes scabiei; this discovery of the itch mite in 1687 marked scabies as the first disease of humans with a known microscopic causative agent.^[4] The disease produces intense, itchy skin rashes when the impregnated female tunnels into the stratum corneum of the skin and deposits eggs in the burrow. The larvae, which hatch in three to 10 days, move about on the skin, moult into a nymphal stage, and then mature into adult mites. The adult mites live three to four weeks in the host's skin.