huge scary looking iraqi insect

What the hell! That is so scary looking. Imagine seeing one of those things near you.

Whoa! Do you realize that if it was chasing you most likely you would not outrun it! Now that makes me all itchy!

I don't care what anybody says, I say call Sigorney Weaver to go kick it's ass.

Yuck!

A friend of mine used to live in Saudi Arabia and has told me some pretty frightening stories about Camel Spiders (Mentioned by a previous poster) if I was in the desert and ran across something like that, well let's just say it's a good thing desert camo is brown.

Spiderj

I wonder if it tastes like chicken?

I asked my friend who was in iraq if he saw these huge spiders, and he asked me if they were the camel spiders, i said yes.
Well he told me how they used to play games, they'd go chase these spiders through the desert, and try to kill them. Also when you kill them they make a screaming sound he says. When they are under rocks they make hissing sounds i think.
He also mentioned dog sized lizards....

Again, they are not spiders. They are Solpugids. They are arachnids, just not spiders. And yes, they are generally called Camel Spiders, but they harmless. Read my previous posts.

Whatever it is I think we can all agree that it's some pretty scary lookin' Starship Troopers kinda bug.

Somebody get Neil Patrick Harris on the line!!

Oof that's an ugly bug!

Arachnids are 8 legged. It can lift itself with the forward
two "feelers" so they count as legs, making it a member
of the scorpion family, along with venigarones.

In Calif, Az, Nv, and Colorado they are referred to as
sun-spiders. In NM they are called child-of-the-earth.
In the deep south they are called BIG, about the size
of a Tarantula and ten times faster. Like the Tarantula
they have a hard time biting a flat surface but let them
get between your fingers and toes, picture a miniature
pair of wirecutters. Their chompers are awesome to
watch when they feed. They dont just work up and
down, but also side to side like a pair of wire cutters
that work 4 ways. Never heard 'em make a sound
except for the pecan shell crackling when they catch
something crunchy. In a bug fight, the big 'ens are
pit bulls.


/\/ight\/\/ing

Scorpions are part of the Arachnid family.

There are eleven orders of arachnids. These include the scorpions; mites and ticks; harvestmen; pseudoscorpions; whipscorpions; solpugids; and spiders.

www.washington.edu...



And feelers are not legs.

feel·er ( P ) Pronunciation Key (flr)
n.
Something, such as a hint or question, designed to elicit the attitudes or intentions of others.
Zoology. A sensory or tactile organ, such as an antenna, tentacle, or barbel.


Get your facts straight my good man!

[Edited on 4-10-2004 by EmbryonicEssence]

I have aracnaphobia so just lookin at those pics give me chills, I wonder what type of spider the one behind the clock was and were it was at?

Did we cause this?




Well, at least a portion of it.

[Edited on 4-10-2004 by EmbryonicEssence]

Oh, now that is a riot! Indeed, the Internet is a powerful medium. At least the webmaster had a sense of humor about it. I am happy that I pulled a copy for myself but no way am I putting it on my piddly little website.

Get your facts straight my good man! ==EmbryonicEssence


I usually do, plus I consider the audience. I paraphrased information from the
Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders,
pages 636, 936, adding in my own observational spin for entertainment.
( The Audubon Society makes a distinction between spiders and scorpions.)
I geared it to the average (estimated) ATS viewer, who is not an Etomologist. So sure, I can be slammed
for using popular rather than pure scientific references. Thus your problem with facts
appears to be with the Audubon Society. In their defense, they sell books to the
public, whereas the college etomology texts tend to be limited to students.


/\/ight\/\/ing

more likely caused by fark.com and fazed.net, as those were the site my friend origianall found the pics

No problem, I wasn't trying to rail ya. Thats the problems with books, different publishers (and authors) seem to have different "facts," lol. It really is hard nowadays to find which facts are true and which ones are not.

Here's an article I found that pretty much covers
the same thing that's already been discussed on
this photo, but check out the video!!
Shows one of there spiders in action, eating a
scorpion.

Creepy!

www.gophergas.com...

ive seen one of those before they r realy ugly i saw it a museum but i cant remember where i was pretty young

ugh.... that picture came into my mind again the other day... gave me the shivers.

WOW that picture takes me back to the days i was over there...it sure is a camel spider and it sure is real..hell they get bigger than that. when i first go to the desert we were shown a picture of a camel spider that was the size of an uparmored humvee tire..i got a ton of stories about those damn spiders..i thought i wouldnt see one again for a while..but thanks..i needed to refresh my memory..SIKE..

mOjOm and I found one of these in our house last year.

It was scary looking so we just caught it and threw it outside, thinking it would go along it's merry way. Lo and behold, the little sucker came back and we caught him a second time the next night. Fearing some kind of freaky infestation we put it in a jar, and looked it up online to find out what it was. Fortunately, we found out that wind-scorpions are solitary animals and not as dangerous as they look. This time though, we took her waaayyy far away from our house, to a field and let her go. We haven't seen one since!!