meet alfred the book scorpion (also: house scorpion):
book scorpion (chelifer cancroides)
i noticed this little guy crawl up from behind a shelf in my room.
pseudoscorpions (they resemble scorpions, but lack the long abdomen and stinger of “real” scorpions) usually hunt for small insects like psocoptera (booklice, barklice), so i think he’ll be allowed to stay in my room.
i named him alfred, after batman’s butler.
over at somethingcrawlinginmyhair.com, there’s an article about book scorpions and the challenge of identification by tim eisele.
Hahahah. Just reading the URL “somethingcrawlinginmyhair.com” made my skin crawl. :)
Also: how do you he’s a “he”? Maybe it should be called … Frieda? :)
sorry … i meant: how do you *know he’s a “he”
hehe, you’re right.
gender identification is probably not as hard as exact species ID, so i think i’ll try to get to a microscope next time i come across him/her. :)