Phoresis is an interaction in which an Animal hitches a ride on another Animal purely for the purpose of transport. This is found in a variety of Animal groups, but is particularly common in Mites and Pseudoscorpions. Unusually for an Animal behaviour, phoresis has a fairly long fossil record, with the oldest known example being a Mite found attached to an early Orthopteran Insect from from the Carboniferous Tupo Formation of China, and the oldest known example involving a Pseudoscorpion coming from Cretaceous Burmese Amber.
In a paper published in the journal Historical Biology on 7 April 2024, Víctor Córdova-Tabares of the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos and the Departamento de Zoología at the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas, Francisco Riquelme, also of the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, and Gabriel Villegas-Guzmán, Javier Víctor, and Emilio Estrada Ruiz, also of the Departamento de Zoología at the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas, describe an example of phoresis from Mexican Chiapas Amber, in which a Pseudoscorpion is attached to a Crane Fly.
Chiapas Amber comes from the Simojovel, Totolapa, and Estrella de Belén localities in the Chiapas Highlands of southern Mexico, with the Simojovel site being the main centre of commercial amber extraction. The amber comes from a series of limestone, sandstone, siltstone, shale, and lignite beds of Late Oligocene to Early Miocene age, referred to as either the Simojovel Formation or the La Quinta Formation. The amber here is thought to have derived from a type of Leguminous tree of the genus Hymenaea; resin-producing trees belonging to this genus are also thought to have been responsible for Dominican Amber, which is of approximately the same age as Chiapas Amber, and are still found today across the Neotropics.
The specimen described is a piece of amber from the Montecristo Mine at Simojoval in the Colección de Artrópodos Fósiles of the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas. The Pseudoscorpion involved is assessed to belong to the genus Hysterochelifer, which has four extant species, but differs from these in the structure of its chelicerae. It is therefore assigned to a new species, Hysterochelifer manpauch, becoming the designated holotype of that species. The specific name 'manpauch' derives from the Tzotzil ‘man pauch’, meaning a person who works with amber.
Hysterochelifer manpauch. (A) Holotype CAF-1 (phoront) and CAF-2 (carrier), general view. (B) CAF-1 in dorsal view; (C) CAF-1 in a closer view. Legs in Roman numerals, abbreviations ab, abdomen; c, carapace; che, chelicera; gt, genitalia pa, patella. Córdova-Tabares et al. (2024).The Pseudoscorpion is attached to the trochanter (second segment) of the foreleg of a Cranefly assigned to the species Trentepohlia immemorata, one of two species of this genus previously described from Chiapas Amber.
The Pseudoscorpion genus Hysterochelifer belongs to the family Cheliferidae, which is distinguished by having a well-developed venom apparatus in both chelal fingers. The family dates back to the Middle Cretaceous, with the oldest specimen coming from Cenomanian Archingeay Amber, which comes from the Charente Maritime district of south-western France. A protonymph (hatchling) assigned to the Cheliferidae has previously been described from Chiapas Amber, but this is the first adult specimen.
Pseudoscorpions attached as phoronts to other Insects have previously been described from both Baltic and Dominican amber, most commonly targetting Dipterans (True Flies) or Wasps. Living Pseudoscorpions will attach to a variety of organisms, including Vertebrates such as Birds and Mammals, but generally prefer Insects or larger Arachnids, and in particular Beetles. Beetles tend to have fairly specific environmental requirements, as do Pseudoscorpions, so a Pseudoscorpion attaching to a Beetle has a good chance of being carried to a suitable new environment. Flies are more tolerant in their environmental needs, typically settling on a wide range of surfaces, making them less ideal carriers.
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