Small arachnids hitch a ride on the scorpion, possibly to get inside food-rich ant nests.
In the middle of an April night in Israel’s Jordan Valley, Yoram Zvik sweeps a UV light over the dark ground near throngs of marching ants. The light passes over the brilliant blue-green fluorescence of a scorpion clambering alongside the ant trail. Peering closer, Zvik — a scorpiologist at the University of Haifa — sees black specks on the scorpion’s glowing back. But they aren’t dirt or sand.
The millimeter-long creatures are pseudoscorpions. They have eight legs and claws like their much larger arachnid relatives but lack a stinging tail. Pseudoscorpions commonly get around by hitching rides on much larger animals such as bats, birds and beetles. Zvik’s nighttime discovery, is just the latest illustration of how ant nests are miniature ecosystems. Well-defended by ant armies and loaded with food, no wonder the scorpions and their hangers-on want to move in. .
Lab experiments between 2019 and 2022 revealed that the scorpions have an appetite for ant larvae. “So, they probably exploit ,” Zvik says.collected in 2018 had two pseudoscorpions gripping its back and hanging on for dear life. Over the next five years, the researchers collected many more scorpions — all without pseudoscorpions in tow. It was unclear whether that one observation was a fluke.
Paula Cushing, an evolutionary biologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, agrees this strategic taxiing is likely. Scientists have documented a similar situation in a myrmecophilous spider, she says.It’s not clear how the ants benefit from such arrangements, if at all. But Zvik thinks the pseudoscorpions could have a more reliable ride than the spiders Cushing describes.
“The ant goes out, collects some food and goes back to the same colony,” Zvik says. “The scorpion probably moves to another colony” because, like the pseudoscorpion, it too may be looking for the next feast. In other words, a perfect match of motivations.
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