# Culturing Pseudoscorpions



## KevinS (Sep 23, 2008)

I was surprised at the lack of results when searching the forum for pseudoscorpions-is no one using them as feeders? I just saw a few on a rock by my house about a week ago and was thinking of trying to culture some, but I'm pretty new to keeping/breeding inverts (pretty much only mealworms and springtails so far). Does anybody have experience with pseudoscorpions, and if so can you share any advice on culturing them? Thanks.


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## Bob Fraser (Nov 21, 2007)

they sound like they would be hard to culture and if the frogs didn't find them quick enough they would wipe out your spring-tails in no time. my frogs love their spring-tails,so no pseudo scorpions here. let us know if you have any luck culturing them. people bring them into the house unnoticed via firewood in the winter time.


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## JoshH (Feb 13, 2008)

Dude they're cool! I've only seen one along time ago, it was about the size of a small fruitfly. They should be easy to raise and feed on ffs. Can you get any pics, I'd love to see them.


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## KevinS (Sep 23, 2008)

I've got a great white temperate springtail culture going already and just started a small colony of the blue temperates. I'm just considering other inverts for variety and pseudoscorpions seem like they'd also be easy to culture. I can try to get a pic, but I didn't have any luck searching for them where I last saw some. I tried to read about culturing them on arachnoboard-you can find some good pictures of them on there in the meantime.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

humm....

a quick internet search yields = they live a couple years, mate a few times a year, have poison glands, are secretive, and are usually found as singles...

dont sound like the best feeder insect to me


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## KevinS (Sep 23, 2008)

sports_doc said:


> humm....
> 
> a quick internet search yields = they live a couple years, mate a few times a year, have poison glands, are secretive, and are usually found as singles...
> 
> dont sound like the best feeder insect to me


As far as the poison glands go, I can't say that something from a different continent like PDF's wouldn't be affected, but I've read enough papers on dietary analysis of our native salamanders to know they're often consumed by our local miniscule amphibians. The same could probably be said of spiders-they're pretty much all venemous, but a lot of amphibians regularly eat them without any apparent issues. I actually don't have any darts at this time, so I'm more likely to feed them to native species anyway. However, mating a few times a year and living singly seems to imply a low reproductive rate to me and that was the main issue I was concerned with. If I can locate a few more, I may play around with them and see what kind of reproductive output they have. If it's as low as it sounds, they probably wouldn't be a great choice though.


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## xm41907 (Nov 26, 2007)

Pseudoscorpions are predators. One major drawback to feeding them out is that you will need to supply them with a food source. I suppose someone with some creativity could find a way to use springtails as a food source, since many of us culture them. I personally wouldn't bother with it.


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