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Flour or grain mites are pale, pearly or greyish white, with legs varying in colour from pale yellow to reddish-brown. Each leg has one claw at the end. As with all mites, they are smooth, wingless, soft-bodied creatures. The males are from 0.013 to 0.017 inch long, and the female is from 0.014 to 0.026 inch. The males have enlarged forelegs which bear a thick spine on the ventral side. These two characters can be used to separate Acarus sp. from other genera. Juvenile mites are similar in appearance to the adults. The first or larval stage has only six legs. However, when they moult into the nymphal stage, they have eight legs like the adults. Mite eggs are oval, smooth, white, and are 0.12 mm long.

If there is any doubt as to whether flour is infested with mites it is only necessary to spread a little out on a table and leave it for quarter of an hour. If the mites are present the surface of the flour will become uneven as the mites start to wander about.

Mite infested foodstuffs acquire a sickly sweet smell and a taste which renders them unsuitable for human consumption. Heavily infested products are definitely injurious and should be discarded. Heavily infested grain and feed that has become tainted and unpalatable as animal feed. When fed infested commodity, small companion animals (e.g., dogs) can show reduced feed intake, diarrhoea, inflammation of the small intestine, and impaired growth. Pigs that consume mite-infested feed have their live-weight gain, feed:gain ratio, and nitrogen retention markedly reduced.

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