A Dark-clawed Chthonid: a Pseudoscorpion

e6filmusere6filmuser Registered Users Posts: 3,379 Major grins
in Holy Macro

I was in local woods yesterday, collecting slime moulds.

I used some leaf litter to pack around the samples, to prevent damage in transit. Today, when I was photographing one of them, this pseudoscorpion emerged from the litter and moved across our kitchen (aka studio) work surface. I got one shot there and more when I got it to climb onto a dead leaf.

They merge in very well into the background and move very fast when they do move.

This one was of typical size, around 2mm. I had the lens set for larger things so I had to crop quite severely. Fortunately I was using flash.

Pseudoscorpions are arachnids, as are real scorpions, but they lack a sting. They prey on small insects, catching them with their palp fingers (claws).

Olympus EM-1, (manual mode), Olympus m4/3 30mm f3.5 ED macro, f11 ISO 250, twin flash, hand-held.

Harold

Sign In or Register to comment.