Post
by bugfreezer » Wed May 05, 2004 10:24 am
The Camel spiders are for real and are quite cool in my book.
Those are the largest ones I have ever seen. They are in the order Arachnida (same as spiders), family Solifugae, and are quite fascinating. They are fast runners (25 mph might be stretching it) and are very aggressive - they will take on anything they can overpower, up to mice and lizards. They are not poisonous (except for 1 Indian species) but you need antibiotics if bitten because of the risk of secondary infections because of their mouthparts being less than sanitary.
We actually have these here in central Washington, but they don't get any bigger than about an inch. In my personal Insect collection, I have an immature Solifugid (what we call them here) I caught on the banks of the Snake River about 25-30 mi from Pullman.
The camel spiders shown in the picture might be from the genus Galeodes and the largest of these can grow up to 6" long, excluding the legs - note the shirt cuff next to them)
:edit
After looking carefully at the picture, these were not the six-inchers that I spoke of. The largest one I recall seeing was on a Animal show about the Namib desert in southern Africa. In the scene, there was a desert cat hunkered down in a sandstorm, and a large solifugid (another Galeodes) toodled over to the cat and hid behind it to escape the wind. Comparing the body sizes, that one was rather fat, and probably measured 4-5" bodywise.
The largest one I had seen personally was over in Worcester ("Wooster") in W. Central South Africa - it had gotten into our cabin and freaked out the other folks there and they had me come sort it out. I wanted to catch it alive, but the democracy prevailed on me to dispatch it...so I did. That critter had a body that was 1.5" long at least (remember, ours up here maxed out overall at 1") and was probably 3" overall.
Some species can make a chittering sound by rubbing their mouthparts together very fast - our own species in the states can.
:end edit
:edit 2
Correction: Class Arachnida, Order Solifugae
:end edit 2
:edit 3
They do not bite off chunks - like all arachnids, they only eat liquid food. What they do is spit up tenderizer as they mash their prey with their "jaws" and suck up the usable bits - their actual mouth is a hollow beak nestled between the jaws..
:end edit 3
As for eating the bellies of camels - I had not heard that one, tho' females are known to snip hair from people and camels when they are ready to lay eggs. They do not have an anaesthetic venom in any case.
Regards,
Bugs
Last edited by
bugfreezer on Wed May 05, 2004 12:04 pm, edited 4 times in total.
