Saturday 20 December 2014

What an amazing insect - a Scorpion Spider

Dear Val and Malcolm,

Festive challenge for the kids go and find a Scorpion Spider.
Scorpion Spider 
Imagine if you will, sitting down reading a book with a nice cup of tea after a hard day of doing nothing and this alien is coming toward you along the arm of the settee.  At first I thought it was a tick but aftercloser inspection I saw it was a Pseudoscorpion, or False Scorpion (identity thanks to project noah) 
These are extremely tiny, ranging from 2 to 8 millimetres in size.  I tried to put a tape measure next to this one, but as it never stopped moving it I never managed to get both in focus, so I drew the lines in afterwards.  I think this is about 6mm in length including the pincers, the other picture it is using a 4mm high tile spacer as a climbing frame.
The pincers are armed with poison to subdue their prey and are also used for fighting. Pseudoscorpions are roughly tick-shaped, hence my initial confusion, but they're not ticks and are harmless (and even beneficial) to humans.  They are small enough to eat bookworms, dust mites, ants and bed-bugs so an all round terminator.

Nev 
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