Found on the wall of the mini house our outdoor rabbits stay in at night.
After spending quite a while working through the
Photographic key to the Pseudoscorpions of Canada and the adjacent USA, taking shots as I went, I strongly suspect this is a male Chelifer cancroides. See remarks on the detail images for my reasoning.
As always, he was photographed live and not harmed in any way for the series. It went a lot smoother than I expected. He wasn't nearly as jumpy as the Linyphiid spiders I've been hanging around lately.
Variations on my
spider palp shooting setup worked for the detail shots. In particular, keeping him under a microscope slide at its edge, so that some parts (like his palps, or chelicerae) weren't covered. That allowed for flexibility since shooting through glass at an angle causes a lot of distortion. I've left brief descriptions of what I did for each shot in the respective image remarks.
It was a time consuming process to get everything because of all the different nooks and crannies you've got to peer into to identify pseudoscorpions! My cluelessness about them didn't help any either. I ended up with a number of additional photos not posted because I took some wrong turns in the key!
I'd like to do more of these whenever I can find some again. If this guy was any indication, they're very cool! And engaging to work with. He was visually pretty alert, even turning to face my finger if I waved it near enough.