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Garden bed weeders have surely noticed neon-red, tiny creatures, some barely a millimetre long. They are velvet mites, of the Trombidiidae family. Considering their miniature size they move quickly – as soil labourers certainly have noticed. They have good legs; full-grown velvet mites are predators who hunt arthropods and their eggs.

To be precise, for those with a zest for knowledge, the velvet mites are not insects but arachnids (harvestmen, or daddy longlegs, are for instance also arachnids).