Marram Grass Chelifer

Dactylochelifer latreillii

Not Evaluated

It has not yet been assessed against the IUCN criteria. See full glossary

A minute European pseudoscorpion, with a brown body and elongated pincers, which lives among the leaf litter and low vegetation of grassland and dunes. It hunts springtails, mites and other minute soil arthropods.

Size

up to 0.4 cm

Diet

Carnivore

Feeds mainly on other animals.

Social structure

Solitary

Lives and hunts alone, joining others only to breed.

Sighting difficulty

Unknown

GrasslandCarnivore Solitary Grassland Arachnid

6countries

Fun facts

Pseudoscorpions perform a courtship dance in which the male deposits a packet of sperm on the ground and guides the female over it, holding her by the pincers.
Despite looking like a miniature scorpion, it has no tail and no sting at all: the venom, where it exists, is in the pincers.
Like all pseudoscorpions, it has a scorpion's pincers but no tail or sting, and is harmless to people.
The female carries her eggs in a sac attached to her underside, and the young stay with her until their first moult.
The male deposits a spermatophore on the ground and performs a dance to lead the female to it.
It preys on mites, springtails and small larvae, which makes it a natural regulator of the soil fauna.