Pseudoscorpion - Microbisium parvulum

Moved

Moved from Pseudoscorpions.
Kevin, this is great , getting a pseudoscorpion to species! This is the first one in the guide to get to species.
This one and most of the pseudoscorpions I find are under rocks, boards and logs.

… tom murray, 30 October, 2012 - 5:43pm

Collection details?

Any collection details, Tom? These little critters are interesting, but almost too small for my scope.

… Kevin Pfeiffer, 30 October, 2012 - 5:32pm

M. parvulum

So, on the basis of Christopher Buddle's key, this is Microbisium parvulum.

Chelal length: 0.62 mm
Femur length: 0.37 mm

KMP-10131

He writes: "Widespread and common across USA and southern Canada; difficult to distinguish from M. brunneum. Deciduous forest litter and soil; males are rare."

Speaking of which, I think this is a female.

Reference:
Buddle, C.M. 2010. Photographic key to the Pseudoscorpions of Canada and the adjacent USA. Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identification No. 10, 03 February 2010, available online at http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/ejournal/b_10/b_10.html, doi:10.3752/cjai.2010.10.

… Kevin Pfeiffer, 30 October, 2012 - 5:14pm

Awesome

Great Kevin, its good to see a dent in the pseudoscorpions! I tried keying a few once, but many of the characters practically required slide mounted specimens under a compound scope to make out.

… Brad Barnd, 30 October, 2012 - 5:50pm

Yeah, there are certainly a couple other paths in Chris's dichotomous key that go that direction (higher power compound microscope), but we got lucky with this common species.

We should try to do more with these, but collection for microscopic examination does seem essential.

-K

Another image here:

… Kevin Pfeiffer, 30 October, 2012 - 5:57pm

Microbisium?

Fortunately, there seem to be some good online references available...

http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/ejournal/b_10/b_10_main.html

My first thought is Microbisium sp., but I've got to spend a little time looking at the reference material first.

-K

… Kevin Pfeiffer, 30 October, 2012 - 9:36am