What Are the Biggest Spiders That Can Be Found Under Beds?

[tho]

ok, it's been a long while...

ok, it's been a long while since any of y'all posted this stuff, but i found this page through Google and others might too...

first of all, these aren't really spiders... they are arachnids, which means they're in the same 'class' as spiders and scorpions (eight legs etc.), and in some places folks call them camel spiders or sun spiders, but they aren't spiders... their scientific-sounding name varies too, but most call them solifugids (some say solifugid singular, solifugae plural)

i'm only taking the time to correct this because this is one of my favorite critters...

look at those jaws... they were the inspiration for the aliens in the movie Predator... these critters have powerful jaws which can move in multiple directions, thus enabling them to grab on with their pincers and literally tear things apart... personally i nominate them to be the model for land-roving robots rather than ants or spiders which others seem to favor...

seriously, i studied these critters as models for robots when i was a grad student in computer science... i started studying spiders but found that as a species their whole evolution centered around their silk-spinning ability - or lack thereof, as in the case of the wolf spiders who seem like another nice candidate for robotic model, but they lack the superior grappling capability of the solifugids...

when i studied these critters (a long time ago), i read stories of soldiers (probably Brits) in the middle-east desert who would throw scorpions in with their pet solifugids and watch the solifugids literally rip the scorpions a new one... sorry, american slang... in a stand-up fight against scorpions, the solifugids would rip their poisonous opponent to shreds and then devour them... got to admire that

as noted by others here and elsewhere, solifugids are not poisonous... they are not the flesh-eating spiders of the desert... there really are flesh-eating spiders in the desert that numb their victims' flesh and then proceed to gnaw on them... very nasty if you're sleeping and they choose to eat your eyeball (*shudder*)... but the real flesh-eating spiders are pretty little blue things, very colorful, not the nightmarish vision as seen in the pictures here...

be sure to see the Wikipedia articles on: Solifugae and Arachnid

as a small note of scientific interest (from the Wiki), there are 900 species of solifugids, 2,000 species of scorpions, and 40,000 species of spiders... that silk-spinning trick has been a big winner, evolutionarily-speaking... i still favor the solifugids, though they are the stuff my nightmares are made of...

(side note: Wiki, as of this posting, is conflicted in that Arachnid article over the number of species of mites and ticks... in one place it notes 30,000 species of mites and ticks, closely followed thereafter with an estimate of 50,000 known, possibly a million total species... got to love Wiki... it's all almost true, almost all of it)

 

[Chi Meson]

Solid first post, tho

I say he gets a flounder, right away.

 

[turbo]

Solid first post, tho

I say he gets a flounder, right away.

You're right. He does not deserve the fresh Portuguese Man-O-War or a smack with a frozen swordfish. Given the quality of the post, maybe MIH will smack him lightly with a sardine and take him out for sushi. The "y'all" means that either MIH or Evo should administer the greeting.

 

[Mk]

Forget about hitting him with it, how about we fry it up and feed it to him with some hush puppies and fries!

 

[Evo]

Solid first post, tho

I say he gets a flounder, right away.

Maybe, if he returns, sounded like a hit and run <clutches her precious flounder>

 

[renigade666]

I thought I would throw this in here...
Wouldnt want to run into one of those :(

http://spikedhumor.com/articles/1780/Huge_Camel_Spider.html

 

[Huckleberry]

Mmmm, tasty!

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Mmmm, tasty!

I don't think I could do that for only $50k, better make it a million!

 

[Moonbear]

I don't think I could do that for only $50k, better make it a million!

Maybe if someone cooked it and served it with butter, but I prefer my food not still be able to bite back when I'm eating it!

I was laughing at the one woman who held her nose while biting it, as if somehow that would help get past the fact that it's legs were still wiggling while they were biting down.

 

[jim mcnamara]

Solifugids (the camel "spider" is the one in the picture) have really big chelicerae - the jaws and have no venom. They flee the sun, hence the name.

Anyway they are found in arid areas everywhere except Australia - East and West Hemispheres. If you live in near cities like Albuquerue, El Paso, or Phoenix you will see one sooner or later. I don't know if the arid areas of the Iberian peninsula sport any of them.
But I would think so.

The picture Ivan posted is deceptive wide angle photography. Most of those guys have a wingspan of 5 inches or less. Not .5m

 

[Huckleberry]

The picture Ivan posted is deceptive wide angle photography. Most of those guys have a wingspan of 5 inches or less. Not .5m

I was just fine with the idea of those things running around on the ground and hiding under rocks and shrubs. When you mentioned wingspans I thought of them flying around and was a little bit horrified at the idea.

I lived in Arizona for a few years and don't remember ever seeing one of these things. I lived for a time in the Phoenix area and also near the border to Mexico, by Nogales. They must hide during the day, or perhaps I saw one and casually mistook it for a tarantula, which are all over the place there.

 

[Moonbear]

The picture Ivan posted is deceptive wide angle photography.

Y'know, I was content to think it was a completely faked photo when first posted, but NO, people had to explain that these beasts really exist. I'm not sure if it's all that comforting that instead of being the size of a large dinner plate, they're just the size of a saucer.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Y'know, I was content to think it was a completely faked photo when first posted, but NO, people had to explain that these beasts really exist. I'm not sure if it's all that comforting that instead of being the size of a large dinner plate, they're just the size of a saucer.

Yeah, and it was impossible not to post the snopes reference to them running 25 mph while screaming. Not to mention the ability to eat your entire arm during the night.

 

[turbo]

We have no camel spiders in Maine, but we have some varieties of water spiders that are awfully intimidating when you're swimming in their lake with lots of skin exposed. They can be pretty big.