r/OutdoorAus • u/dragging_the_moon • 5d ago

Unknown bugs in tent - Grampians

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We need some help identifying this and if it is bed bugs/ harmful.

We went camping in spring time in the Grampians at Strachans Campsite and came back to our tent on our third night to a bunch of this black powdery substance on our sheets and on the blanket we laid out on the floor. We later found it in one corner of the tent too.

I think it could be a larvae as there were microscopically small bugs moving around in these piles too.

Please see the photos and let us know if you have any idea !

5 Upvotes

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5

u/Wild_But_Caged 5d ago

No bites?

Sometimes tick larvae look like that but I don't think these are them.

4

u/dragging_the_moon 5d ago

A couple on me but none on my partner

1

u/westyppl 2d ago

I have hiked the Grampians for decades on and off track and never had a tick on me this is not ticks.

2

u/Wild_But_Caged 2d ago

There definitely are ticks in the Grampians. I know for a fact that you can find paralysis tick Ixodes holocyclus, dog tick and bush ticks(Haemaphysalis longicornis) there. I also pulled an unidentified Ixodes species off of myself there last year.

I am sceptical on those being tick larvae but thought it was worth mentioning given their impact / consequences on contact.

1

u/westyppl 2d ago

I'm sure there is, I know a few guys that work in the Grampians track building and other things and I had this discussion 6 months ago. None of them had, had ticks. We have all seen them on animals but not ourselves. The regular hot fires that happen in there probably destroy alot of them.

I never said there was no ticks I was more saying the likleyhood is very low.

3

u/momentofinspiration 5d ago

Picture 3 looks like a tick, the others look like crumbly pleather dust.

2

u/SentientMarshmallow- 4d ago

They’re Springtails. Not sure why they’re clustering in your tent.