Sang mites

life saving insects

Sang mites, more officially referred to as 'Sang's mites' with the posessive, are a variety of incredibly tiny insects kept and bred accross Yatan'aa for cleaning wounds and treating infection.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Sang's Mite is incredibly small, no longer than a piece of shan is wide. They have eight legs like most insects, and are a pale semi-transluscent greenish white. This color darkens slightly when they have done their work however.

Biological Traits

The Sang mite is incredibly unique in that it not only consumes only infected and rotten flesh, but is immune to all known infections itself. If a mass of the tiny insects are placed overtop of an infected wound, they will swarm into the wound, investigating every nook and cranny of the area, even blood vessels and nerves and consume every bit of infected or dead tissue they can find. If the are of the wound is placed in a cool shaded place, the tiny creatures will emerge again from the wound when they are full or there is no further rotten flesh to eat. From there they can be safely collected.

Growth Rate & Stages

Like many mites and similar insect species on Tamrakaaz, Sang's mite is only an intermediary nymph stage for a slightly larger flying insect. In this case, Hubotaan's fly. The mite starts as a worm like larva that hatches from tiny egg clusters laid by the adult under leaves. The larva travels as far as it can before starving to death in the hopes of finding some sort of rotting animal, then goes through a brief metamorphesous. The tiny burrowing insect known as Sang's mite molts from the larval husk and imediately begins consuming the decaying flesh of whatever creature it found, doubling or even trippling in size. When full, the mite crawls finds moving cool air and something to hang itself from, usually the underside of a low leaf, where it then goes through another brief metamorphesous, changing color, losing all but four of it's legs and gaining a set of diaphenous wings. The now adult insect then fly's up and away to dark, higher area to mate and lay eggs.
Sang and Hubotaan discovered their respective insects at roughly the same time, but were unaware of the other until years later, each having named their discovery according to what they deemed to be the more interesting stage of it's development. While it is accepted that Hubotaan discovered the insect first, Sang focused on the nymph stage of the creature and it's incredible practical benefit, it is his name that is known to almost ever human being in Yatan'aa, and even the Raz Ursanai.

Additional Information

Geographic Origin and Distribution

The original habitat of the Sang mite is low underbrush of the deep rainforests in the southern reaches of ya'Haaldi. In the modern era however, the creatures are bred in their trillions across Yatan'aa. Any healer or field medic will carry a Sang mite colony with them at all times for disinfecting and treating wounds.

"How incometant can you be? Any surgeon who let's his mite colony die should have his knives taken from him and his fingers broken for good measure! Be thankful you're only being sent back to your apprentice robes."

- Master Surgeon Kaled Aen overheard disciplining a junior surgeon outside the home of a deceased patient (816AS)

Lifespan

ten days

Average Weight

half to a third of a mili-stone