4月的一个深夜，在以色列的约旦河谷，约拉姆·兹维克(Yoram Zvik)用紫外线灯扫过一群行进的蚂蚁附近的黑暗地面。光线掠过了一只蝎子在蚂蚁的足迹旁爬行时发出的蓝绿色荧光。Zvik是海法大学的蝎子学家，他仔细观察，发现蝎子发光的背部有黑色斑点。但它们不是泥土或沙子。它们是活的，不像它们的毒尾运输，偷渡者在紫外线下不会发出荧光，这暴露了它们的位置。

　　这种几毫米长的生物(大约是蝎子的二十分之一长)是假蝎子。它们有8条腿和爪子，就像它们更大的蛛形纲亲戚一样，但没有带刺的尾巴。假蝎子通常会搭蝙蝠、鸟类和甲虫等大型动物的便车四处游荡。兹维克夜间的发现首次揭示了蝎子也可以充当运输工具。

　　这一发现发表在去年12月的《Arachnologische Mitteilungen: Arachnology Letters》上，它只是蚂蚁巢穴是微型生态系统的最新例证。有蚂蚁军队保护，又有食物，难怪蝎子和它们的食客想要搬进来。

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　　Zvik first got an inkling of this network of tiny tenants in 2016. Searching for Birulatus israelensis scorpions in the wild, he found them walking along trails made by foraging Messor harvester ants. Zvik and colleagues suspected that the scorpions were living within the ant colonies. Ants in the colony don’t seem to recognize the scorpions as threats, and the sting-bearing sojourners skitter in and out of the nest freely. B. israelensis appears to be the only known scorpion myrmecophile — a creature that lives in close association with ants.

　　Lab experiments between 2019 and 2022 revealed that the scorpions have an appetite for ant larvae. “So, they probably exploit [the ants],” Zvik says.

　　Then came the pseudoscorpion piece of the puzzle. One B. israelensis collected in 2018 had two pseudoscorpions gripping its back and hanging on for dear life. Over the next five years, the researchers collected many more scorpions — all without pseudoscorpions in tow. It was unclear whether that one observation was a fluke. But that spring night in 2023 in the Jordan Valley, Zvik found seven scorpions, each with at least two pseudoscorpions along for a ride. One of those scorpions carried six wee passengers.

　　Zvik and his then-advisor Efrat Gavish-Regev, an arachnologist at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reached out to Sharon Warburg, a pseudoscorpion expert also at the university. Together, the researchers characterized this arthropod rodeo in more detail.

　　The pseudoscorpion, identified as Nannowithius wahrmani, probably uses the scorpion as a shuttle to disperse among ant colonies, the team suspects. That may help the pseudoscorpion infiltrate the nest where it can feed on mites and other small prey within.

　　Paula Cushing, an evolutionary biologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, agrees this strategic taxiing is likely. Scientists have documented a similar situation in a myrmecophilous spider, she says. Attacobius attarum lives with leaf-cutter ants (Atta sexdens) and uses them as taxis to move between colonies.

　　It’s not clear how the ants benefit from such arrangements, if at all. But Zvik thinks the pseudoscorpions could have a more reliable ride than the spiders Cushing describes.

　　“The ant goes out, collects some food and goes back to the same colony,” Zvik says. “The scorpion probably moves to another colony” because, like the pseudoscorpion, it too may be looking for the next feast. In other words, a perfect match of motivations.

　　Reference