Sunday, June 26, 2005


And this was inside a cardboard box I pulled from our storage unit. Anyone know what kind of bug this is? It is very small. I'm sure measured in millimeters. Posted by Hello
Update: Thanks Lief and Bop-Op for discovering this is a Pseudoscorpion. Harmless to humans. Whew!

5 comments :

Anonymous said...

Ha! I found it!
After looking for crustacea and ticks and scorpions (because of what I knew about numbers of legs etc) I finally did a search for "tick crab claws" because I was running out of ideas.
I found this site called Whatsthatbug.com
and it was there!
it is called a pseudoscorpion and it is related to both spiders and scorpions.
Check it out.
http://www.whatsthatbug.com/pseudoscorpion.html
You have an unusually good picture of it, you may want to submit it to the site?

Lief

Bop-op said...

My field guide has a very good photo of a grey-colored version of this bug. It's in the Pseudoscorpions section (I've never looked closely at that section before) and they call it a Chernetid, and member of the family Chernetidae. It says it inhabits many areas, including wooded areas, under leaf litter or bark. It feeds on insects.

Amboy Observer said...

Awesome! Thanks guys!
I think 1/2 of me didn't have the nerve to try looking this one up myself. I was afraid I'd discovered that we have a particularly dreaded form of tick or something. I'm elated to hear that it is a bug-predator. Whew!
It was cool, when I moved in for the closest picture my lens could get, it scurried around a bit, looking for cover undoubtedly.

Anonymous said...

It heartens me that the half of you that didn't want to look it up won James. It scares the hell out of me that Lief did look it up and seemed very excited about it!!!! I have new sympathies for Angela and Abigail. Poor things. Lucky Heidi!! Hee hee hee hee hee. Can't you tell, rainy summer day in Belgique!

Anonymous said...

Wow that is an interesting looking bug.