Polarized Pseudoscorpion!!

Jun 22, 2018 • 5:35 AM UTC

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Microorganisms

Mitali

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Hello everyone!
What do you think of when you hear the word Scorpion?
Maybe something that you should stay miles away from!!
Today I have a for you a Pseudoscorpion! You may think that these are close relatives of the dreadful scorpions but nope, these are actually more closely related to Arachnids!
And to answer the question you all may have..No these are not poisonous. Pseudoscorpions feed on ticks and mites and do not posses a venomous sting ya their hind end.
Here is our tiny Pseudoscorpion

Can you see the sharp edges of the claws?!?!

now what I was actually trying to do with this insect is just see whether their chitinous exoskeleton shows birefringence but I landed up observing something really amazing
These are the insect legs in bright field illumination

and now take a look at it through cross polars

Wish I could’ve imaged it live to see how the birefringence changes as the muscles contract 🙁 but sadly the insect was already dead
You can beat me to it tho 😉 I’lI be eagerly waiting for someone to try it out until I get my hands on another insect.
Have fun foldscoping!
Mitali Patil
Undergraduate
Ramnarain Ruia Autonomous College