Illinois Natural History Survey - University of Illinois

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Pseudoscorpions


Apochthonius diabolus Muchmore 1967 (Arkansas)
Photo by Steve Taylor and Mike Slay

Therea are about 420 species of pseudoscorpions described from the United States. Here is a checklist (current through August 2009) of the Order Pseudoscorpiones (Arachnida) for the United States of America, parsed from Mark Harvey's definitive and most excellent world catalog.

Checklist of Pseudoscorpions of the United States:

I've summarized the above list in this bubble chart (Click on image to interact - you may need to download a Java Plugin.):

Looking just at the family Chernetidae in the United States, it is easy to see where most of the research has been done:

chernetid
A pseudoscorpion from a lava tube cave in northern California
Photo by Jean Krejca and Steve Taylor

Arkansas Microcreagrine

A pseudoscorpion, probably in the subfamily Microcreagrinae, from a cave in northwestern Arkansas. Scale bar in lower right is 3 mm.
Photographed by Mike Slay, with whom I'm working on Ozark pseudoscorpions - we'll soon have a name for this critter!

litter

An adult male pseudoscorpion, Chthonius (Ephippiochthonius) cf. tetrachelatus (Preyssler 1790) (Chthoniidae), from forest leaflitter in western Illinois (Monroe County).
Horizontal line in upper right is 1 mm in length. Image is a mosaic of photographs of a specimen mounted on a glass slide. Photo by Steve Taylor.

PMSP Pseudoscorpion

A pseudoscorpion from leaflitter collected in the hills adjacent to the Illinois River in Jersey County near Grafton, Illinois.
Photo by Steve Taylor.

Microbisium?-sjt09-130

Another pseudoscorpion, probably Microbisium parvulum Banks (1895) (Neobisiidae), from upland forest leaflitter at base of a tree in Monroe County, Illinois. Microbisium parvulum is perhaps the most commonly collected, and most abundant, species of pseudoscorpion in Illinois.
Vertical line in lower right is 1 mm in length. Image is of a specimen mounted on a glass slide. Photo by Steve Taylor.

Pseudoscorps

Two pseudoscorpions. Photo (c) 2010 Ashley Bradford.

Links:
An on-line key to Canadian psuedoscorpions based on photomicrographs is available here.

This page is maintained by Steve Taylor. Please email sjtaylor@illinois.edu with comments and corrections.
Created 13 September 2009, last modified 9 May 2011.