Video: Montana Huffaker's highlights vs. Bixby
See the Claremore High player in action this season.Claremore (Okla.) football fans can rest easy, the bug bite mystery has been solved.
Earlier this year, according to News Channel 4 KFOR in Oklahoma City, Claremore football fans noticed red bites on their bodies following the football game. Chiggers were thought to be the cause of the bug bites, but further investigation resulted in another culprit - oak mites.
Claremore Zebras
Courtesy photo
Oak mites, which are microscopic, fall from trees and land on a new host. Once there, they will bite the host in search of food.
According to Oklahoma State University entomologist Justin Talley, the mites are not carnivorous.
"Basically they take a bite and it's 'This isn't what I want' and they drop off," Talley told the Tulsa World. "We're an accidental host."
The mites did not prevent any games from being played, but it would not have been the first time that insects, or arachnids, had affected a football game or a football player. Earlier this year, quarterback Colt Collins from Princeton (Texas) played a football game while recovering from
West Nile Virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes.
In 2005,
black widow spiders forced the movement of a freshman football game off-campus at Basha (Chandler, Ariz.).
In 2011, fire ants in South Carolina resulted in the
suspension of a game between Hunter-Kinard-Tyler (Neeses, S.C.) and Calhoun County (St. Matthews, S.C.).
