Most Pselaphinae are

free-living predators as

adults and larvae,

feeding on springtails,

mites, and other small

invertebrates. A large

number of genera have

become associated to some

degree with ants, and the

subfamily shows a whole range

of ant-associations, from scavengers

in the vicinity of ant nests, to true

inquiline species that live in the nest and are

carried and fed by their ant hosts. Some of the

most highly adapted ant inquilines are in the tribe

Clavigerini, which have lost their eyes; they have

shortened and strengthened antennae and

abdominal segments to reduce damage caused

by the ants, and have trichomes, special brushlike

structures that secrete liquids on which ants and

their larvae can feed.

is a pselaphine, the 52 million-year-old

Eocene Protoclaviger trichodens, which

was described by one of the scientists who

discovered it as “a truly transitional fossil”

opposite | Batrisodes

lineaticollis A free-living

North American pselaphine,

photographed in the Great

Smoky Mountains National

Park, North Carolina.

above | Claviger testaceus

From northern Europe,

a highly modified eyeless

pselaphine, associated with

ants of the genus Lasius.

below | Colilodion schulzi

The only known specimen of

this extraordinary species from

the Philippines, named by

Chinese and Swiss scientists.