Our recent warm weather has brought out a whole lot of little creatures. As I was hiking about in Prince William Forest Park last week, I notice a spot of bright red moving about on a rock at the edge of a small creek. When I looked at it more closely, it had a shape that made it look like a tiny red spider.
I did some initial searches when I returned home to see if I could identify the spider. I could not find an exact match, but I think this might be a spider mite (or some kind of mite) rather than an actual spider. If I understand it right, mites and spiders belong to the same family of arachnids, though I might have this wrong.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Chiggers! Worse than mosquitos, not as visible as fire ants, and completely terrible if they find your flesh. Do an image search; I’m 99% positive that’s what you found.
This is a mite (not spider). In your part of the world, could be a chigger.
Thanks, Michael. I eventually figured that this little creature was probably a mite rather than a spider. We definitely have chiggers in my area, though it seems a little early for them to appear. I looked at some images on-line and “my” critter definitely looks like a lot of shots of chiggers.
I once felt the devastating itching they cause, when I was in Venezuela. 😁.
Interesting!
We referred to these as Money Spiders back home in Scotland. The idea was it was good fortune (specifically financially) if you found one on you. The ones we had were more orangey-red than this wee fella but the same sort of thing.
I have never known what the US word “chigger” referred to so I have learned something new from the comment section.
They must be wide spread reading the comments, I’ve seen them in Tasmania too! I’ve heard them called money spiders too.
I saw one (happened to photograph it) last season outside here in Oslo.
Mike,
This looks a lot like a tick to me.
Linda
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Great image! Well done👍. Nature is just great isn’t it. Kind regards…Jay
Thanks, Jay. Nature never fails to amaze me.