Giant Mite

Giant mite is a little dangerous hostile creature that has a chance of dropping from trees when the tree is disturbed. It's present in the worlds.

Behavior
"Beware! These dangerous creatures live in tall trees. Your dwarves will attack enemies on their own."

- The tutorial guy.

A giant mite has a low to moderate chance of spawning when a tree is disturbed by a dwarf, either when collecting water under it, cutting it down or climbing it. It will usually appear at the top of the tree, drop to the ground and attack the nearest dwarf. A tree will usually not produce more than one giant mite.

Giant mites have low health and deal low damage and are only a minor threat during early game.

Appearance
This species closely resembles the appearance of natural ticks, but is a dark blue, unnaturally large - approximately the size of a large dog.

Tips
Interestingly, a giant mite sometimes does not survive if left alone. On rare occasions, if it does not have a dwarf nearby to attack, it will die. To exploit this behavior the player can open a portal very close to the tree. The first dwarf's reaction after seeing the mite falling over him/her is to escape through the portal, which triggers the giant mite's death. The dwarf then comes back to work as if nothing has happened. This is useful while playing on Nightmare difficulty, where all damage from enemies is highly increased.