whats this bug?
Hi there…….
My name is Shayla and i live in southeastern wisconsin. i found this tiny little creature crawling on my ceiling and i watched it for a couple of minutes and i put my fingure close to it and it moved from side to side like a crab and so i tried to make it fall onto a piece of paper so i could get a better look at it. it seems to have eight legs also. so i figured i would go online to see what i could find .. i was not able to find out what kind of bug it was but i took some pictures of it with my webcam … hopefully you will be able to help me out as in telling me what this bug is and a little about it?
greatly appreciated,
shayla
Hi Shayla,
You have a harmless (unless you are a small insect or spider), Pseudoscorpion. They are arachnids, related to both spiders and scorpions. They have a worldwide distribution and are often found in homes.
¶ Posted 12 August 2004 § ‡ ° Hello,
I came across your site looking for info on this bug I’m seeing. We have a mite problem in this one room, where a bird nested in the eave, and I have laid down some double sided tape to try to determine where the entry point is, so I don’t have to RAID the whole room. Anyhow, a different bug has secured itself to the tape, almost making it across the span before apparently giving up in despair. It has pincers extending out like longhorn cattle horns, equal to the length of it’s body. I don’t have a camera at the ready, I’ll try to draw one and attach it, if you could be of any help. Greatly appreciated. I live in central Minnesota.
Thank you,
Steve
Hi Steve,
What a great drawing of a harmless Pseudoscorpion. We have an entire page with some photos. Just click the Pseudoscorpion link in the alphabatized list of the www.whatsthatbug.com homepage.
P.S. They may be eating your mites.
Daniel,
Thank you for the quick response and ID. I browsed your site for names I didn’t recognize, but I never thought to look at the pseudoscorpions. That’d be great if it was eating mites, except now I killed it with the tape trap.
Thanks again,
Steve
¶ Posted 25 June 2004 § ‡ ° I found this weird bug on my bathroom wall, it freaked me out because I am scared of spiders and it looks like a cross between a spider and a scorpion. I live in Maine and one of the reasons I love living in Maine because there are no scorpions. Tell me this isn’t a poisonous scorpion bug so I don’t have to move to Alaska or Antarctica.
PS are there any human habitable areas that do not have spiders?
Dale Richardson
Addison, Maine
Hi Dale,
While you are right that Pseudoscorpions look like a cross between spiders and scorpions and spiders, both of whom are related, you can rest easy that they are totally harmless, unless you are a small insect. They have no poison glands unlike both spiders and scorpions. I doubt there is a place on earth that does not have spiders, except the bottom of the ocean.
Thanks so much for answering my question so quickly! I was a bit worried about those pinchy looking things, good to know they’re harmless.
¶ Posted 06 June 2004 § ‡ ° Hi Bugman,
We just want to say THANKS! We found a most unusual-looking tiny bug while vacuuming our living room wood floor. It looked like a tick, but with crab-claws! Afraid it was some sort of parasite, we killed it. Then I searched in Google for "bug that looks like a crab or scorpion" and found your site – THANK YOU for putting our minds at ease, though now I feel guilty for killing it, since I found it’s a harmless Pseudoscorpion! We have a very old house with a stone foundation; we aren’t going to be bug-free so we keep spiders in our unfinished basement as a peaceful co-existence. We know they eat smaller disease-carrying insects, so they are good bugs. While we killed this little guy out of fear, we won’t kill any others we see. We’ll just relegate them to the basement.
Very cool site; thanks again.
Regards,
Donna
Dear Donna,
I’m happy we could be of service.
¶ Posted 24 January 2004 § ‡ ° I need to have this identified!!
Hi! I live in Minnesota and yesterday my husband found a really strange bug inour shower wall. He saved it in a cup for me….it is really SMALL. I do not have a digital camera, so I will describe it was best as I can.
It is very small, dark brown. It resembles a tick, but not that flat. The body shape is round and oval, it has 4 small legs on each side of its body. The really wierd thing is the rest of it’s body. It has these REALLY long front legs (in addition to the 4 legs on each side) with these scorpion -like claws/pinchers. There are no antennae. I have been keeping in it a saline solution, but it will not die!!! We have never seen anything like this before and hope there are no more where it came from! HA!
This is how big it is: — That is the total length of the body.
Thank you!!! Anne Wallman
Stewartville, MN
Hi Anne,
You have a Pseudoscorpion.
¶ Posted 11 December 2003 § ‡ ° Hi,
I was cleaning my washroom today, and come to think of it I have seen one of these in my living room previously (crawling on my couch). These bugs are brown about the size of a grain of rice (but thinner), they look like they have 6 legs, and perhaps wings ( I have never seen them fly before). They are flat, and it looks like they have a shell, but they squish quite easily. Here’s the part that scared me, when I was cleaning the washroom, I sprayed some cleaner in the tub, got a drink and when I cam back, the bug was laying in the bottom of the tub, upon closer looking it had little claws or pinchers (kind of like a lobster). After doing some research I thought it was a pantry beetle, but I have never seen pictures of pantry beetles with pinchers.
I have attached a couple of pictures, hopefully they help.
Many thanks in advance,
Ben
Dear Ben,
You have killed a harmless Pseudoscorpion which belongs to the order Chelonethida or Pseudoscorpionida. They are also called Book Scorpions. They are small arachnids. They eat small insects hence are beneficial.
¶ Posted 09 November 2003 § ‡ ° hi
I live in Minnesota and have had a bit of a shock when I discovered pseudoscorpions visiting my home. At first we didn’t have a clue what they were and looked up all sorts of possibilities before finally stumbling on their true identity.I know that they are harmless but my mom goes CRAAAAZY at the site of any sort of insect in the house. So, I was wondering if regular anti-bug chemicals would work such as bugbombs, sprays, etc.. the reasons that we want to go to these extremes is because I have found 3 of them in my room(2 of which were in my bed) and can’t figure out how they got there besides grabbing a ride with the laundry which is done in the basement. And from reading on them they apparently like damp places, which would explain a lot since water leaks into the basement whenever it rains. Problem is this can’t be helped or prevented at the moment. And like I said my mom is going nuts (I can’t say that I’m too enthusiastic at the thought of them being in my bed either). We were also wondering why they became so prevalent all of the sudden since we have never seen them in our house before and have now found 4 in the past month (3 in my room, 2 in my bed, 1 dead one caught in a cobweb). Any info on the extermination of these bugs would be greatly appreciated!
Th
Sorry Th,
Your best source for any erradication decision is a local exterminator, though that sounds like extreme measures to me. We promote coexistance with the lower beasts.
¶ Posted 11 July 2003 § ‡ ° Hi Mr. Bugman,
We found this on our daughter’s wall in her bedroom and of course think the worst. We thought it was a tick. My husband says it’s "pinchers" were open. Can’t find it on the net anywhere. Any ideas???
Thanks,
Itchy in Syracuse, NY
Dear Itchy,
It is a harmless pseudoscorpion.
¶ Posted 27 April 2003 § ‡ ° 
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