How can something be SO cool and SO creepy at the same time?

[JLC]

The Egyptian Giant Solpugids (aka....the Camel Spider!)

My daughter came home from school the other day full of stories she'd heard about this amazing "Camel Spider" that soldiers were running into in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. "Big as a dinner plate....able to leap 10' at a time....they eat into a camel's body to lay eggs....they'll chase your shadow!!!"

Just the thought of it left me feeling extremely creeped out. Especially the part about them chasing my shadow and jumping 10 FEET! ~shudder~ So..a little self-education was in order!!

• The largest species only gets 6"....not exactly dinner-plate sized!
• They don't eat camels or do anything else with camels...they just happen to be found in the same deserts as camels and that's where their common name comes from.
• They don't jump.
• They're not really spiders at all...but still arachnids...related to both spiders and scorpions.
• They can also be found in the deserts of the American Southwest and Mexico.
• They WILL chase a human shadow!!! (They're nocturnal and don't like the bright sun...so if one is in your shadow and you move, it will follow the shadow to stay out of the sun.

[CoolioTiffany]

My God, that is CREEPY. I would HATE to be near one of those, are the venomous?

[Tek48]

I can't decide if the first one is cute or disturbing.

[wolfy-hound]

Yeah, I've gotten the hoax emails a few times, and sent the snopes referance page to the senders. They are cool critters, but creepy looking as heck if you think about waking up to them crawling on you. Ewww.

I think they are like the false scorpians.. yes?

[Dalishar]

Ha, I had a camel spider in my living room about ~2 years ago. We lived a few miles from a base, so assumed he dropped out of one of the planes or somesuch since we weren't anywhere near their kind of habitat.

I was on the computer really late, and the bugger was just crawling along the wall. Wouldn't have even seen him if I hadn't dropped a pen and reached down to get it.

From someone who's deathly afraid of butterflies, let alone crazy looking "spiders"... suffice to say I just about shat myself and had a heart attack all at once! Luckily my far-less-phobic mom woke up (probably due to my screaming...) and saved me.

I kept him in the jar we caught him in and he died that same night. I've kept him and the jar - he's fun to show off, and I'm still not entirely convinced he won't "wake up" and get me the second I dump him out.

[CoolioTiffany]

From someone who's deathly afraid of butterflies, let alone crazy looking "spiders"... suffice to say I just about shat myself and had a heart attack all at once!

I'm with ya on that! I hate big bugs, and especially the ones that fly..
I get so freaked out, I don't really even know why. The funny thing is, when I say I hate bugs to someone, I almost always get this reply: "So, your scared of big, flying bugs, but you own and take care of snakes?... Wow Tiffany." LOL

[wilomn]

I kept him in the jar we caught him in and he died that same night. I've kept him and the jar - he's fun to show off, and I'm still not entirely convinced he won't "wake up" and get me the second I dump him out.

You know, and it's just a rumor, but I've it told that they, they being scientifical types that know these kinds of things, have been said to have found perfectly preserved female camel spiders, gravid no less, in the Tombs of Pharaohs and that the eggs, when exposed to fresh air, hatched.

If that's true, then you keeping that thing in a jar might not make any difference to any eggs inside it hatching.

That very same rumor monger, the one who originally rumored me, the source of many an odd fact and not a few stranger than true stories, said that all camel spiders, and this is true, are not only female but born gravid, living only long enough to mature the eggs within them to the point that the babies can hatch out, eat the mother and each other, as well as any other flesh, like you or me, they happen upon until they too have matured, being born pregnant, and lay their eggs which hatch already pregnant 6 inch flesh eating spiders.

Are you sure you have the lid screwed on tight?

[Dalishar]

Oh, truly? I'm so very happy that my fears were well founded then!

I'll make sure to put his jar in a safe! Why, if they can propagate so efficiently how soon until my little line is evolved enough to eat through glass?!

... Oh dear, what if they eat through the safe?

[Bruce Whitehead]

Only the kids of herpers would come home so excited about such a thing.

Amazing creature Judy. WW

bruce

[onlyjays9p]

That first pic is fake