Bugged out

Nature Whilst I was tapping away at a job search this afternoon, I noticed something clambering down the wall. The shape didn't match any of the five known species of insect known to exist in my home so I led it onto some A4 paper so that I could have better look. It looked somewhat like a spider, somewhat like a scorpion and somewhat like an ant and the kind of thing that could have been used as a model for the massive monsters in the film Eight Legged Freaks. I trapped into a clear plastic file folder and sent it through the scanner. It was tiny, and my scanner's crap but I did manage to get these scary shots.



Of course I Asked Metafilter. Firstly I received an email from Paul R. F. Bowser, Ph.D. from Canada who said it was perfectly possible for scorpions to be in my neck of the woods but couldn't see the picture so was guessing. Then Sarah from New Zealand in the Metafilter thread identified it as a pseudoscorpion which was backed up by a number of different users. I love that this became a global problem. According to the wikipedia, the pseudoscorpion is a type of spider that can live for over three years. But are they friendly?

"Pseudoscorpions are generally beneficial to humans since they prey on clothes moth larvae, carpet beetle larvae, booklice, ants, mites, and small flies. They are small and inoffensive, and are rarely seen due to their size. They usually enter the home by "riding along" with larger insects (known as phoresy), or are brought in with firewood. They are often observed in bathrooms or laundry rooms, since they seek humidity. They may sometimes be found feeding on mites under the wing covers of certain beetles."

So they're the cleaners of the arachnids, keeping the environment clean for other users. On this basis I had to set it free and it's just scurried away across the window ledge. Bye, then.