The human body hosts a variety of microbes, fungi, viruses and scientists from North Carolina and California have published several new factoids about the microscopic animals living on your face -- in your pores, actually.

Research teams from North Carolina State University, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and California Academy of Sciences explain there are at least two different varieties of arachnid mites that have likely taken residence in the vicinity of your nose, just as they have on every mammal on the planet, except for members of the platypus family, according to a university news release.

Demodex mites are tiny relatives of spiders and ticks and reside in and on the skin of mammals, which often apparently house more than one species of mite; field mice, for instance, are known to have up to four different mite species on their faces alone.

Generally, the mites live out a harmless coexistence with their hosts -- although they have been known to cause their furry, four-legged hosts to suffer mange and humans to contract ailments like rosacea and blepharitis.

One of the most notable discoveries about the microscopic skin-dwellers is that everyone -- everyone -- has them, the new work emphasizes.

That realization hasn't always been straightforward because traditional sampling methods, such as scraping or pulling a piece of tape off of one's face, has typically only shown the existence of skin mites on 10-25 percent of adults. The fact that mites are found at a much higher rate on cadavers clued investigators into the notion that they are much more ubiquitous than previously thought.

In fact, Dan Fergus, a mite molecular biologist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, discovered mite DNA could be sequenced from face scrapings regardless of whether a mite could be found under the microscope -- and that mite DNA was found on every single adult sampled by researchers.

Demodex brevis, which is short and chubby, and Demodex folliculorum, which is considered long and skinny, are the two most prevalent animal inhabitants on our mugs, though they aren't closely related at all.

Actually, the brevis is more closely related to dog mites than to the other human mite -- which demonstrates that humans acquired the mites in different ways and from different places.

And, yes, it's probable man's best friend at some point in evolutionary history gifted what has become one of man's most ubiquitous face mites.

It's assumed from scientific observation that Demodex have lived with their human hosts for a very long time and were already accompanying the early humans who migrated out of Africa and spread around the planet.

Indeed, the DNA from the brevis species used to find mites from China are genetically distinct from mites from the Americas.

Put another way, as East Asian and European human populations diverged over 40,000 years ago, so it seems, did their mite colonies.

Then again, the folliculorum mite from China is indistinguishable from that of the Americas.

As well, the brevis species appears to live deeper in one's pores than the folliculorum does, indicating it gets around and intermingles with different people less readily than the folliculorum.

The ancient journey of Homo sapiens, said the researchers, can be rediscovered through the evolution of the mites.