# Need help identifying a bug, puhlease!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 16, 2009, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608 "2009-03-16T13:09:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2009, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608/1 "2009-03-16T13:09:22Z")
Tiny, small and round, smaller than a tick but with a similar looking body. Legs were short, almost impossible to see.
HOWEVER!
it had these two huge pincher arms in front of it. Both pinchers were longer than the body and kind of swept out from the head area in an arcing manner.
Imagine one of the smilies (:eek: on a 15 inch monitor) with two large gangly pinchers sticking out from it. Not a segmented body, just a round flat tick-like creature with two oversized pinchers. Um, the SO needed it removed from the premises so I had to squish it.
It squished, unlike a tick, so I know it wasn’t a tick.
The hell could it have been?
Oh, midwest area and the monster in question was inside the bedroom clinging to a wall.
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### Author:  [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2009, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608/2 "2009-03-16T13:18:17Z")
I should add that the insect was brown and the pincher arms were very thin and the pinchers on the ends of the long arcing thin arms were also very small.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2009, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608/3 "2009-03-16T13:27:11Z")
[Pseudoscorpion](http://www.whatsthatbug.com/2007/06/13/pseudoscorpion-3/), maybe?
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### Author:  [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2009, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608/4 "2009-03-16T13:30:16Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#):
>
> [Pseudoscorpion](http://www.whatsthatbug.com/2007/06/13/pseudoscorpion-3/), maybe?
Jebus cripes, just shoot me.
Yep, that’s it.
Yup, time to move then.
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### Author:  [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2009, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608/5 "2009-03-16T13:36:57Z")
Hey! I’ve seen those in my bathroom in the spring & summer. I always think they’re ticks until I look closer. I’m in the midwest, too.
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### Author:  [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608/6 "2009-03-16T15:10:13Z")
I never knew there was such a thing. It’s kind of cool in an icky way, it truly does look like the love child of a tick and a scorpion. Isn’t nature weird?
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608/7 "2009-03-16T15:12:26Z")
> [@Uncommon\_Sense](#):
>
> Yep, that’s it…Yup, time to move then.
Why? It’s completely harmless, says [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscorpion).
> [@](#):
>
> Pseudoscorpions are generally beneficial to humans since they prey on clothes moth larvae, carpet beetle larvae, booklice, ants, mites, and small flies. They are small and inoffensive, and are rarely seen due to their size.
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### Author:  [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608/8 "2009-03-16T17:01:15Z")
> [@Maastricht](#):
>
> Why? It’s completely harmless, says [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscorpion).
Just kidding, I was. If I can deal with centipedes and big hairy black house spiders, I can deal with them things.
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### Author:  [@Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazon_Floozy_Goddess)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2009, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-identifying-a-bug-puhlease/489608/9 "2009-03-17T14:39:51Z")
I _hate_ carpet beetles! They totally destroyed a couple rabbit pelts I had. You’re lucky, **Uncommon Sense!** Give me some wee fake scorpions any day.