The video above was taken by Peg 15 on the North Shore of Great Race Rock where the students of a biology class were doing an intertidal transect. We often find Neomolgus at this elevation, and it is one of the few invertebrates inhabiting the top range of the spray zone.

Neomolgus is a tiny mite looking like a little red dot moving across rocks or other hard surfaces. Its diameter is 3mm. Mites are like spiders and ticks in that they have four pairs of legs. At Race Rocks, it is especially common among the bare rocks out on the North West corner by peg15.

Neomolgus has a large distribution in the northern hemisphere. It moves very actively and responds very negatively to the approach of a human finger. It uses its long snout for piercing small flies and sucking their juices.

Links:http://www.beachwatchers.wsu.edu/ezidweb/neomol01.htm

Kozlof : SeashoreLife of the Northern Pacific Coast.

Lamb and Hanby, Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest, page 276