Aotearoa / New Zealand @lemmy.nz happy_piwakawaka @lemmy.nz 10 mo. ago

🦂 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.

21 comments

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.
- Wow they are way smaller than OPs picture led me to believe
- Goin' on a lil phorsey ride
That's cool, never seen one of those. What part of the country are you in?
- I'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
  
  I 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)
He's a Pinchy boi.
- Pinchy uber
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)
I'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
That's awesome! I've never heard of these! Arachnids that are not spiders, but not scorpions either. Fascinating
- Ticks 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.
They're so repulsive and yet so beautiful.
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?!
- You've been around tons guaranteed, unless you're in the arctic
  
  That's really cool. From the article it seems they are everywhere but never swarms of them just small numbers.
- I 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
  
  That's cool! I particularly like how some species travel by fly-back 😆
So awesome!

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