pseudo-scorpions – Lee Duigon

Here you can see how small they are; and a lot of them are smaller still.

Although they can be found in many, if not most, houses, you’ve probably never seen one of these pseudo-scorpions. They’re very small and they stay out of the way.

Mr. Nature: A Scorpion Friend You Didn’t Know You Had

But they eat bedbugs and moth larvae! Doing without the pseudo-scorpions may be a lot more trouble than it’s worth. Probably the only time you’ll see one is if it falls into your sink or bathtub and can’t get out because the porcelain’s too slippery.

If that happens, it would be the deed of a kind and generous heart to scoop the little fellow out on a sheet of toilet paper and let him someplace where he can go back to being practically invisible.

House pseudoscorpion (Chelifer cancroides) in our kitchen | Insect species, Wood trim, Insects

In real life, the bug in the picture above is very, very small. It’s the house pseudo-scorpion (Chelifer cancroides)–not an insect, but an arachnid–and is highly beneficial to us humans.

Jambo! Mr. Nature here, with a critter that’s mostly too small to be noticed, although it can be found in very many homes. And if you’ve got them in your home, you’ve got a good thing.

Pseudo-scorpions don’t harm us or our stuff, and here’s what they eat: carpet beetle larvae, clothes moth larvae, book lice… and bedbugs! (The USS Connecticut, desperately trying to fight off a bedbug infestation, could use twenty or thirty thousand of these little guys.) There’s a good chance you have them in your home but have never noticed them.

If you think you have a pseudo-scorpion, you probably need to look at it under a magnifying glass to be sure. If you can then see it’s not a pseudo-scorpion, it’s almost certainly something bad that you ought to get rid of. But if it does turn out to be a pseudo-scorpion, release it and let it go about its business.

I wonder how many bedbug or clothes moth infestations never got off the ground because of pseudo-scorpions.