Wildlife Agency Will Not Protect Pseudoscorpion

WASHINGTON (CN) – The Grand Canyon Cave pseudoscorpion, an arachnid so rare only one specimen has ever been found, does not warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.      The agency completed a 12-month review of the species and determined that there is insufficient evidence to know if the species still survives, let alone what threats it faces.     Pseudoscorpions have large claws but lack the stinger of true scorpions. The species is thought to live its entire life in caves without any notable adaptation to the cave habitat.     The only known example of the species was found in the Grand Canyon National Park’s Cave of the Domes in 1978. To date, no further specimens have been found despite extensive searches throughout the dry caves in the park.     Because other species of pseudoscorpions require moisture to survive and can be dispersed by hitchhiking on flying insects, there are doubts that the Cave of the Domes species originated in that particular cave.