Saturday, September 18, 2010

Fans of Awsomeness Behold the Pseudoscorpion

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I found one of these guys in my lamp the other day. After getting some magnification on the little fella I knew I was looking at an arachnid. It had claws like a scorpion, but no scorpion tail, and it was spinning a bit of silk like a spider. A little searching on the internet gave me the name of this creature. It's a pseudoscorpion, and everything about it is great. Pseudoscorpions live all over the US, but you may never see them because their maximum size is about 2 centimeters. Psuedoscorpions live entirely on a diet of things I hate, like flea larvae, carpet mites, clothing moth larvae and small flies, which is the first cool thing I discovered about them. They grab these pests with their venomous claws and devour them. Yes, I said "venomous claws." The pseudoscorpion is a very efficient creature. Where a scorpion has to grab its prey and then try to sting with its tail, the pseudoscorpion has its venom conveniently located in the claws. Pretty clever, eh? (BTW, they can't actually bite humans. Just very small things.) Another great thing about pseudoscorpions: though wingless they get around by air travel. How? They hitch a ride on a winged insect, like this:

The best part of this is that the pseudoscorpion might even be able to eat her mode of transportation once she gets where she's going. 

Suffice it to say I have a new favorite arachnid. 

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