🦂 Pseudoscorpion / false scorpion
🦂 Pseudoscorpion / false scorpion
http://soilbugs.massey.ac.nz/pseudoscorpions.php
Pictured here crawling along my shorts. Apparently they'll attach themselves to flys and other flying insects to grab a ride off to other places.
I got excited when I learned that they ride on flying insects and immediately had to search for pictures! They do not disappoint.
Also learned today: this behavior is apparently called phoresy.
33 0 ReplyWow they are way smaller than OPs picture led me to believe
18 0 ReplyGoin' on a lil phorsey ride
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That's cool, never seen one of those. What part of the country are you in?
13 0 ReplyI'm in Wellington, but they're apparently everywhere - just we tend not to notice them since they're pretty small and like live under leaves and stuff
7 0 ReplyI made the mistake of looking up whether these live in the UK too, to find there are 27 species of them here. And now my skin won't stop crawling...😩
(I know they are very small, harmless to humans, and mostly live outside, but arachnophobia doesn't discriminate lol)
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He's a Pinchy boi.
7 0 ReplyPinchy uber
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Often seen around books and sometimes called the "book scorpion", they prey on booklice that like snacking on bookbinding glue
They are also a natural predator to carpet beetle larva, which are pests that eat natural fibers (like some carpets)
7 0 ReplyI've seen these, too! Unlike scorpions, which inject their venom through their tail stinger, pseudoscorpions inject their venom through their pincers! This seems a lot more logical tbh and it's why they don't have a tail
5 0 ReplyThat's awesome! I've never heard of these! Arachnids that are not spiders, but not scorpions either. Fascinating
4 0 ReplyTicks are also arachnids that are not spiders or scorpions. Same with chiggers. There are plenty of arachnids other than spiders and scorpions... actually, I think that about covers it.
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What's the scale here? Your link says they are typically less than 5mm, is that about the size of this one?
I'm wondering how many I've been around and not noticed?!
3 0 ReplyI would guess around 3mm for that one. I've never seen them either but happened to look down and saw it crawling on me while gardening
5 0 ReplyThat's cool! I particularly like how some species travel by fly-back 😆
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You've been around tons guaranteed, unless you're in the arctic
6 1 ReplyThat's really cool. From the article it seems they are everywhere but never swarms of them just small numbers.
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They're so repulsive and yet so beautiful.
3 0 ReplySo awesome!
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