The Tortoise Table

Hi, I live in Cornwall Ontario Canada. My Hermans have an outdoor enclosure that I want to put them in during the day but the stones are full of very small red bugs. Wondering if these can hurt the tortoises or not. There so small that I can't get a good picture of them.

Hi Tasha
Its really difficult to identify a bug without seeing it so I wonder if you will be able to google and look at the images for Red Spider Mite and look for lifesize images. Alternative you could ask a neighbor if they know what it is and get back to us if you find out.

Lin

Hi Tasha,

I agree with what Lin has said, but this might help you -- it's loads of photos of Canadian insects and the IDs for them. Is yours one of these:
http://www.pestcontrolcanada.ca/Questio ... 20pest.htm
Very nice looking enclosure by the way!
Nina

I should have added that the only insect that I would be really worried about is fire ants, and certainly the other insects that we have in the UK wouldn't be a big problem for our tortoises, but I'm not sure about Canada. It would really help if we can ID them. What you don't want to do is use any kind of insecticide on them, as tortoises are especially sensitive to them. What some people do for ordinary ant infestations is to pour boiling water on them (obviously not when the tortoise is around). This kills off a lot of them, and although they will probably eventually come back, if you keep doing this every now and then it can keep the numbers down.

Nina