I was pleased to get this tw**t from Matthew showing a fly with boots. It looks like a housefly, and the pseudoscorpions are simply exhibiting phoresis: they’re hitching a ride to somewhere on the fly’s leg. The “pseudoscorpion” page on Wikipedia notes that “pseudoscorpions often carry out phoresy, a form of commensalism in which one organism uses another for the purpose of transport.”
https://twitter.com/oninnaig/status/919752538718638080
Now if he just had a phoretic cowboy hat!
From What’s That Bug?, here’s another pseudoscorpion committing Phoresis in the First Degree on the antenna of an ichneumon:
And, if you have €250, you can buy a phoretic pseudoscorpion in Baltic amber (no telling what it was riding on):
Wow. That baltic amber photo is amazing. (Not that the others aren’t, too.)
I suppose actual cowboys are guilty of phoresis too.
Good point!
You can almost hear the wheels turning in Jerry’s head. Scorpion skin cowboy boots….Hmmmm….
Might be hard to wrangle enough scorpions for an entire boot. An inlay is a possibility.
Another problem is that scorpions, as arthropods, don’t really have skin; they have shells made of chitin.
In Mexico they really do make cowboy boots with real scorpion shells attached to them. They’re really ugly.
A scorpion large enough to shoe Jerry …
Let’s come to a division of labour. You hummm, I’ll run.
OM non-existent G! That is so cool.
The fly is also sporting a Groucho Marx nose in the form of what appears to be a phoretic mite on its face.
Thumbing a ride taken to a new level, wherein the hitch-er gloms onto the hitch-ee’s thumb.
What do you suppose triggers them to get off?
Very likely, a nice whiff of skatol.
Very interesting!