Now you have to understand that being from Arizona I have seen my fair share of scorpions and know that the smaller they are, the more poisonous. Not expecting to find such a creature in our home in MN surrounded by 32 degree temps, I was taken aback. You might have thought my first reaction was to squash the thing but I decided I wanted to blog about it so I ran to get my camera. Upon returning it had vanished. (the weird thing is there was nowhere for it to go anywhere near and I ran for the camera!) The thing that struck me was the size of this thing. It was only 1/8 to 1/16 of an inch. (no longer than the width of my wedding band!) I also noticed quickly that it did not seem to have a tail anymore. This, I supposed, was a good thing. I quickly got on the Internet and searched for bugs that looked like a scorpion and trusty google came through again (which is where I got the above photo). It is a Pseudoscorpion. There are 3 types:
The one I saw looked like the one on the far right, color:dark brown. What really got me was how the thing kept opening and closing its pincers. Upon reading on I found that these things "hitchhike" on the legs of flies. THAT must have been how it got in because as I said before, we have an abundance of flies... They do contain poison in their pincers but it is only effective against very small bugs. Apparently they do have silk glands with which they make cocoons to spend winters. Also it seems that Pseudoscorpions are considered beneficial to us since they are aggressive predators on clothes moth larvae, carpet beetle larvae, booklice, ants, mites, small flies and even small earthworms. Here are some pictures to help you understand the size:
Well there is your homeschooling lesson for the day:)
6 comments:
Little bit creeped out just now.
Sorry, had too many mistakes in the comment. Whenever I see that comment deleted thing it makes me think someone must've said something horrible, but here it is with better spelling:
*shudder* Huge drawback to old homes: bugs galore.
When we first got married we lived in an old house with a damp, dark and scary basement (the other rooms kind of were too). When we would come back from an evening meeting and flip on the lights silverfish bugs would scatter as fast as they could OFF the walls and into some dark corner. It was really disturbing. I still wonder how many of those things I ate in my sleep....
nice story Sara and Alissa. Our old home is fairly bug free but not that old (1958) and well build.
hahahah, oh yes. I still remember my first experience with silverfish in Dubuque. I think those are some of the most disgusting bugs! One time I was sitting on a cushion on the floor and one went right under me. I screamed and called a friend over.
I'm amazed that you could even see the little bug enough to identify it! It must be my "maturing" eyes! I'm glad you aren't living with REAL scorpions running around. If the house has been empty for awhile, it may take a few cleanings to get 'em all, but then there may be less bugs around. One can hope anyway! But, then you will move, so maybe you are just clearing out the bugs for the next occupants! Too bad it's only 32 up there, we're having a really nice (50's) day here.
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