Hi everyone,

I was inspecting one of my mammillaria species (matudae to be exact) and I noticed these white things in between some of the nipples in all sorts of places on the cactus. I saw these things a couple weeks ago, but being new to cacti, I figured well maybe that's normal.... If I had to measure the length of these "white things" I'd say they are about 1/16 of an inch long, horizontal in length (the nipples on this mammillaria are kind of swirly, so the white things are a bit slanted in between the nipples). Um, the scary thing I noticed today was that one of these things was more rounded rather than skinny (like the other white things on the cactus) and it had what looked to be striated lines on it... I poked at it with a toothpick (it then came off of the cactus) and pulled it in between the spines... it was squished in between the spines, but as it was squished, it was gooey and disingergrated into a gooey-like substance (like stepping on a bug). I poked at another white thing and it did the same thing Were these bugs? If so, are the other whitish things bugs too (immature bugs maybe?)? If so... what kind of bugs are they? Mealy bugs? Thanks alot for your help.