Monday, November 11, 2019

Case of the Week 568

This week's case is from Old One - illustrated by him and animated by his son. It features an arthropod that measures a few millimeters in length.
See it in action HERE!
Identification?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

No Parasite Found, environmental pseudoscorpion.

- Mark Fox

Sir Galahad said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sir Galahad said...

Eight legs, rounded abdomen, no sting. Pseudoscorpion, NO parasite

Anonymous said...

Ah, a scorpion with no tail nor venomous stinger.
No worry, Old One means no harm!!!
Great creativity.
Florida Fan

sylvie g said...

It is called a pseudoscorpion. It can sometimes be found in the house, but is not a parasite, so no worries, it does not bite nor sting. It just happened to come into the house from outside. It can look a bit like a tick because of its two front legs that are held in front of it, but contrary to the tick, this pseudoscorpion has two claws, like a lobster. Also, contrary to the tick, this pseudoscorpion has these horizontal lines on its body.

Santiago said...

I think the morphology is consistent with a pseudoscorpion, based on the segmented abdomen, presence of pincer-like palps and the absence of tail or stinger. However, I am unsure of how to further classify it... After doing some research I found that pseudoscorpions do not transmit disease and are harmless to humans, so control measures such as pesticides are not recommended; some even consider them beneficial since they feed on other small arthropods such as booklice and flies! Great illustration/animation skills from Old One and son!
Santiago

Old One said...

Here is another little mystery for Dr. Fox.

You were a guest lecturer at the 1994 summer session in St. Albans.

We met again at the Ostertagia Workshop in Maryland.

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