Imagine discovering that your pearl necklace was actually a string of parasites gorging themselves on your bodily fluids. But instead of helping the unfortunate arachnid, a team of researchers gleefully declared it the country’s second known spider-parasitic mite. He and his colleagues’ study, published in October in the International Journal of Acarology, represents Brazil’s second record of spider-parasitic mites and the first of this mite family. Spider mites suck lymph—a fluid in some arthropods—from between the spider’s abdomen and cephalothorax, an area called the pedicel. As if this wasn’t enough, Bassini-Silva said that Brazil is a great place to find previously undiscovered parasitic mites—the country has over 3,000 spider species.