A pseudoscorpion clinging to a cave salamander: phoresy or failed predation?

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  A pseudoscorpion clinging to a cave salamander: phoresy or failed predation? Abstract Pseudoscorpions are well known for phoretic associations with arthropods, but interactions with amphibians are rarely documented. Here we report a pseudoscorpion attached to the left palpebral region of an adult male Italian cave salamander, Speleomantes italicus , observed during a visual survey in a karst cave in Tuscany, Italy. The pseudoscorpion, assigned on the basis of visible morphology and locality to Chthonius cf. elongatus , was grasping a minute cutaneous fold on the lower margin of the left upper eyelid with one chela while the salamander moved slowly over the rock surface. No handling was performed and the initial contact between the two animals was not observed. The event therefore cannot be interpreted unambiguously, but may represent opportunistic phoresy or defensive attachment following a failed predation attempt. To our knowledge, this is the first published observation of a ...

Transcriptomic and Proteomic Study on Animal Venom: Looking Forward

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Image Credit: Luis A. Roque, Arácnido Taxonomy

Transcriptomic and Proteomic Study on Animal Venom: Looking Forward

Transcriptomic and proteomic studies concerning venom and venom glands have provided major breakthroughs in the characterization and knowledge of global crude venom compositions and have also allowed for the identification of new toxins and activities. Venom gland transcriptomes (mRNA) and proteomes (proteins) share a high degree of concordance regarding the major toxins produced, meaning the most heavily transcribed genes in the gland generally correspond to the most abundant proteins in the venom. These approaches are based heavily on specific techniques that allow for in-depth characterization and knowledge of global crude venom compositions like DNA sequencing and mass spectrometry, respectively. However, the transcriptome–proteome relationship is not perfectly linear, with studies often showing that venom gland transcriptomes contain a larger, more diverse array of “potential” toxin transcripts, while the proteome reflects only the “actual” translated products identified [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9].
Ho, P. L. (2026). Transcriptomic and Proteomic Study on Animal Venom: Looking Forward. Toxins, 18(5). https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins18050213