The Spider of your nightmares ! (Warning !: anyone with arachnophobia, DO NOT ENTER!)

[Nonskimmer]

That is why you spend your life in a steel tube under the ocean then - no sand and no spiders...

And some people laugh at submariners. Ha! We may stink, but there ain't no flies on us!

...Until we crack the hatch, then they just come in from all over.

 

[syscom3]

He told me he cought one, one night on his ex-wife's shoulder drinking blood and killded it with his shoe,

Is that why she is an "ex" now?

Good thing it wasnt on her head?

 

[lesofprimus]

I too have been approached by more than 1 Camel Spider in my time in the Middle East, and basically mimick what Adler has been saying... They are also called wind/sun scorpions...

Ive had one jump on me before, as well as chase me... And like everyone who knows anything has been saying, it was attempting to get in my shadow, not eat me...

They arent spiders either... Entomologists call it a solifugid, part of the Order Solifugae , but they do belong to the class Arachnida... Spiders are in the Order Araneae... Solifugae also have long pedipalps, which function as sense organs similar to insects' antennae, and give the appearance of the two extra legs up front... The most distinctive feature of Solifugae is their large chelicerae, or 'fangs'... Each of the two chelicerae are composed of two articles forming a powerful pincer; each article bears a variable number of teeth or spines as well.....

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Solifugae

Heres a vid clip of one eating a lizard....

 

[MacArther]

Heres a vid clip of one eating a lizard...

I don't care if they don't attack unless provoked, that is some seriously scary crud!!

 

[Soren]

Exactly. Dont worry they scare the **** out of me too. The only time they are aggressive though is if they feel dangered or you dont leave them alone.

Very true, and unfortunately that is exactly what some bored grunt out in the desert might do !

The best story that I heard about them (and believed it too until I found out the truth about them) was they got the name Camel Spider (they are actually called sun spiders) because they would lay there eggs in the food that the Camel eats and then the the babies would hatch in the stomach of the Camel and eat there way out. Totally BS story...

Other versions claim that the Camel spider can actually jump around 3 feet into air and uses this ability to latch onto a camels belly and start eating of it

I wish I could post the video (I tried allready once in another thread about the Camel Spiders in this forum) that we took one day in Iraq when we flew a very long mission with one hiding in the cockpit. We did not know until we landed but then saw this leg sticking out from a door seal. My buddy pulled out his video camara and someone else took a pencil to get him out. Needless to say the said Camel Spider came out very quick, ran up his arm and down his back and into the sand and hid. The video is funny and all you can hear from me is me screaming "Holy ****, Kill It!" because I have arachnaphobia and I dont like spiders even though Camel Spiders are not actually spiders.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I too have been approached by more than 1 Camel Spider in my time in the Middle East, and basically mimick what Adler has been saying... They are also called wind/sun scorpions...

Ive had one jump on me before, as well as chase me... And like everyone who knows anything has been saying, it was attempting to get in my shadow, not eat me...

They arent spiders either... Entomologists call it a solifugid, part of the Order Solifugae , but they do belong to the class Arachnida... Spiders are in the Order Araneae... Solifugae also have long pedipalps, which function as sense organs similar to insects' antennae, and give the appearance of the two extra legs up front... The most distinctive feature of Solifugae is their large chelicerae, or 'fangs'... Each of the two chelicerae are composed of two articles forming a powerful pincer; each article bears a variable number of teeth or spines as well.....

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Solifugae

Heres a vid clip of one eating a lizard....

Those pics look like the ones that we saw the most down in the desert.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Other versions claim that the Camel spider can actually jump around 3 feet into air and uses this ability to latch onto a camels belly and start eating of it

They can jump. I am not sure how far they can jump, but they can jump. I have seen them jump over rocks and things.

 

[Soren]

They can jump. I am not sure how far they can jump, but they can jump. I have seen them jump over rocks and things.

But over 3 feet high ? If so I'd need to see it to believe it...

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I doubt it is 3ft high.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

why's there a turtle shell on the ground in that video?

 

[lesofprimus]

Not sure Lanc...