Thursday, August 25, 2011

Pseudoscorpions

From time to time I noticed this small spider -- so I thought -- in the basement. I payed no attention to it for the longest time thinking that it was merely a crab spider. After taking these pictures and further examination, it became evident that crab spiders do not have these pincers. So now what? After considerable searching under different names I found from the bugguide.net that it is a pseudoscorpion. It is common in North America right up to the treeline.

It gets around by hitchhiking on larger flying insects, and is very beneficial to humans, preying on tiny insects like aphids, ants etc. Though it does produce venom, its pincers are too small to inflict injury to humans and are thus considered harmless.