# Camel spiders



## Gilberator (Oct 19, 2012)

Last night I had an interesting convo at a friends dinner table. His sisters boyfriend was over in the middle east for awhile and said camel spiders freaked him out. I didn't find this surprising at all considering these species are definitely one of the weirdest 8 leggers I've ever seen. What I DID find surprising is that he said they burrowed into camels and would feed on them until there was no more camel. Now I hate being the one to be correcting people at the table so I just sat their and laughed. This morning I went onto the good 'ol internet and searched for an answer on this. Cha Cha answered that they eat camel stomachs and lay their eggs in there. I'm not an expert on this species but I believe them to take advantage of only one thing the camel provides. And that's shade. It astounds me that so much misinformation about spiders is on the internet. No wonder most of the population hates them so much! :idea: 
Also heres the chacha link http://www.chacha.com/question/do-camel-spiders-actually-eat-camels


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## Tarantula_Hawk (Oct 19, 2012)

Hehe well just your everyday regular arachnid-related-urban myth/popular legend / BS.
Nothing to worry about.

Reactions: Like 1


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## VictorHernandez (Oct 21, 2012)

Yeah, I think that is just a load of baloney. They are actually called camel spiders, because people in the middle East believed that one single bite would kill a camel, which is not true, infact, solifugids dont even have venom glands. Kind of like how farmers in the US called velvet ants cow-killer ants because they thought that a Sting would kill a cow.


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## Greenjewls (Oct 21, 2012)

Seems like most information that people retain is of the BS sort (when it comes to non-mammal animals).  I love the story about milk snakes, that they are always in the barn sucking milk from the cows teats.  Anything that makes for a good story is more memorable than the facts. Some other examples "the bigger the scorpion, the less poisonous" "brown recluse has a violin on its back"  also, you gotta google "Gomar Scorpion".  I think they call them camel spiders simply because they exist in areas where camels exist.  In the US they are called "sun spiders" and "wind scorpions".  Honestly they need a better common name and Solpugid and Solifugid are not gonna stick  lol


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## Chris_Skeleton (Oct 26, 2012)

Greenjewls said:


> Seems like most information that people retain is of the BS sort (when it comes to non-mammal animals).  I love the story about milk snakes, that they are always in the barn sucking milk from the cows teats.  Anything that makes for a good story is more memorable than the facts. Some other examples "the bigger the scorpion, the less poisonous" "brown recluse has a violin on its back"  also, you gotta google "Gomar Scorpion".  I think they call them camel spiders simply because they exist in areas where camels exist.  In the US they are called "sun spiders" and "wind scorpions".  Honestly they need a better common name and Solpugid and Solifugid are not gonna stick  lol


Brown Recluses do have the violin shape on their back....


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## The Snark (Oct 26, 2012)

If I had my way...
Just quit calling them 'Camel Spiders'! They aren't 'spiders' and have nothing to do with camels. The silly name propagates this asinine thinking. 
When some knee biter brings it up, set things straight: "Camel spider? Do you mean solifuges?"

Reactions: Like 1


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## MrCrackerpants (Oct 27, 2012)

Greenjewls said:


> Seems like most information that people retain is of the BS sort (when it comes to non-mammal animals).  I love the story about milk snakes, that they are always in the barn sucking milk from the cows teats.  Anything that makes for a good story is more memorable than the facts. Some other examples "the bigger the scorpion, the less poisonous" "brown recluse has a violin on its back"  also, you gotta google "Gomar Scorpion".  I think they call them camel spiders simply because they exist in areas where camels exist.  In the US they are called "sun spiders" and "wind scorpions".  Honestly they need a better common name and Solpugid and Solifugid are not gonna stick  lol


My brown recluse plays violin. I need to post a video.


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## The Snark (Oct 28, 2012)

Chris_Skeleton said:


> Brown Recluses do have the violin shape on their back....


If you look extremely closely at a large number of Recluse backs you will discern that the shape on it's back is in fact a 1920's Martin 3/4 size classical guitar. The violin can go the way of the Dodo and the Camel spider.

Reactions: Like 4


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## Greenjewls (Oct 29, 2012)

Chris_Skeleton said:


> Brown Recluses do have the violin shape on their back....


Some recluses have a tiny marking on the cephalothorax, many have faint or no markings at all.  Regardless, what good does this information do the lay person?  Most household and commonly seen brown spiders have a "violin like" marking on the abdomen, such as the "housekeeping spider" Olios fasciculatus and many wolf spiders.  So while the homeowner is busy squashing these friendlies, the less remarkable recluse breeds rampantly in the closet... which is for me reminiscent of the hundreds of murdered "moccasins" in Florida, which when inspected turn out to be banded water snakes or even the protected indigo snake.


"violin" on a common wolf spider


"violin" on a household huntsman spider


"violin" on a brown recluse


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## Ciphor (Oct 29, 2012)

Over 140 species in NA have similar violin shaped patterns on carapace. It is a common camoflauge for spiders. Only the fiddlebacks have a strong well defined violin on carapace. Laymens would never know the difference.

Common pattern for Linyphiinae, especially males which wander.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/628696/bgimage
http://bugguide.net/node/view/607896/bgimage

Orb weavers, especially males which wander, are also a common one that gets confused by the laymen. I had someone bring me a dead _Zygiella x-notata_ once, cursing up and down that it was a brown recluse because of the violin shape, and that I had no idea what I was talking about... this is even after I showed them photos of their spider and the real recluse.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/227537/bgimage
http://bugguide.net/node/view/186211/bgimage

There is more, and I could go on, but you get the idea.

Reactions: Like 1


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## The Snark (Oct 29, 2012)

This thread quite obviously demonstrates something that is the jist of what the OP was saying: People tend to lean towards ignorance. They will place sensationalism before factual information and they prefer to be deluded rather than seek out the cold hard scientific facts. Is it any wonder that science always faces an uphill slog with each major discovery? For me, this discussion exemplifies why, after vast amounts of solid scientific analysis, creationism is still alive and well in roughly half of the population of the modern world.
Lucy & friends... no. Camel spiders... yes! Reality? We'll have a rain check, please.


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## Ciphor (Oct 29, 2012)

Chacha is garbage. In 2 minutes of browsing through it I found like 5 pieces of absolutely inaccurate information regarding spiders.

http://www.chacha.com/question/what-spider-spins-the-biggest-web

Nope, try again! http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...r-webs-madagascar-science-pictures-strongest/

Reactions: Like 1


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## Greenjewls (Oct 31, 2012)

Ciphor said:


> Chacha is garbage. In 2 minutes of browsing through it I found like 5 pieces of absolutely inaccurate information regarding spiders.
> 
> http://www.chacha.com/question/what-spider-spins-the-biggest-web
> 
> Nope, try again! http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...r-webs-madagascar-science-pictures-strongest/


LOL you mean the Darwin's bark spider web of 82 feet is bigger than the golden silk spider's 3 foot web?  There is so much garbage information out there, even for people who care to try and find out the truth there isn't much hope.  And I really need to buy a Gomar scorpion if you know anyone who's selling one.  I'm going to preschools all over town to teach kids about bugs, bringing a huge live collection.  Fighting ignorance at a grassroots level!


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## VictorHernandez (Oct 31, 2012)

Greenjewls said:


> Some recluses have a tiny marking on the cephalothorax, many have faint or no markings at all.  Regardless, what good does this information do the lay person?  Most household and commonly seen brown spiders have a "violin like" marking on the abdomen, such as the "housekeeping spider" Olios fasciculatus and many wolf spiders.  So while the homeowner is busy squashing these friendlies, the less remarkable recluse breeds rampantly in the closet... which is for me reminiscent of the hundreds of murdered "moccasins" in Florida, which when inspected turn out to be banded water snakes or even the protected indigo snake.
> 
> 
> "violin" on a common wolf spider
> ...


I have seem many spiders with a violin on their backs.


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## Ciphor (Oct 31, 2012)

Greenjewls said:


> LOL you mean the Darwin's bark spider web of 82 feet is bigger than the golden silk spider's 3 foot web?  There is so much garbage information out there, even for people who care to try and find out the truth there isn't much hope.  And I really need to buy a Gomar scorpion if you know anyone who's selling one.  I'm going to preschools all over town to teach kids about bugs, bringing a huge live collection.  Fighting ignorance at a grassroots level!


That is how you do it. My daughter was telling me about a pumpkin spider they found at school (_A. diadematus_ orange morph) and how the boys were all scared and running away, and she walked right up and tapped it down onto her hand and laughed at them. 

I know a couple amateur biologists like myself who go around to schools and do educational pieces about arachnids and bugs. We all gotta do our part, we are all way out numbered by ignorance.


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## Chris_Skeleton (Oct 31, 2012)

Well, I really don't see the distinct "violin" shape on those others like Recluses have, just another shape altogether. Of course, I know how to differentiate amongst them. Just because other spiders have similar markings, doesn't mean the brown recluse doesn't. I was just saying brown Recluses do have the violin shape, regardless of if other spiders do or not as well.


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## Ciphor (Nov 1, 2012)

Chris_Skeleton said:


> Well, I really don't see the distinct "violin" shape on those others like Recluses have, just another shape altogether. Of course, I know how to differentiate amongst them. Just because other spiders have similar markings, doesn't mean the brown recluse doesn't. I was just saying brown Recluses do have the violin shape, regardless of if other spiders do or not as well.


Of course, we have looked at thousands of spiders and images while the laymen tends to avoid looking at spiders all together


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## Ungoliant (Nov 7, 2012)

VictorHernandez said:


> Yeah, I think that is just a load of baloney. They are actually called camel spiders, because people in the middle East believed that one single bite would kill a camel, which is not true, infact, solifugids dont even have venom glands.


According to Snopes.com, camel spiders are "so named because, like camels, they can be found in sandy desert regions."

I try not to call them "camel spiders," because that is misleading (they're not spiders), and it's the term most commonly used in urban legends. (Many people who have heard the term "camel spider" only heard it as part of an urban legend, whereas if you use less familiar terms like "solifuge," "solifugid," or even "windscorpion," you're starting in neutral territory.)


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## MMAFogg (Nov 7, 2012)

A lot of myths about these buggers are from people like my friends.

Soldiers out in the Middle East tell stories and they expand into rumours. I spent no end of time correcting my mates whilst I was out there!

Still they are the one type of arachnid I would not own even if offered one for free!!!!


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## The Snark (Nov 7, 2012)

Ungoliant said:


> According to Snopes.com, camel spiders are "so named because, like camels, they can be found in sandy desert regions."
> 
> I try not to call them "camel spiders," because that is misleading (they're not spiders), and it's the term most commonly used in urban legends. (Many people who have heard the term "camel spider" only heard it as part of an urban legend, whereas if you use less familiar terms like "solifuge," "solifugid," or even "windscorpion," you're starting in neutral territory.)


Neutral territory. Exactly. When speaking of animals, be as neutral and objective as possible.


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## Perocore (Nov 7, 2012)

Yep, especially when, according to a little "the most venomous scorpions of the world" webpage, they list an Emperor scorpion as the 2nd most deadly scorp on all of earth...apparently the ones of the African variety are the most deadly.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Greenjewls (Nov 9, 2012)

Chris_Skeleton said:


> Well, I really don't see the distinct "violin" shape on those others like Recluses have, just another shape altogether. Of course, I know how to differentiate amongst them. Just because other spiders have similar markings, doesn't mean the brown recluse doesn't. I was just saying brown Recluses do have the violin shape, regardless of if other spiders do or not as well.


I know what you mean, the marking on a recluse really looks exactly like a violin more than on other spiders.  Honestly no one expects the art on spider's backs to be exact.  My point is, when the masses are instructed to kill any brown spider with a "violin" on its "back", this is a death sentence for just about all house spiders.  I never meant to imply that recluses don't have a  violin shape on them, just that this little tidbit of general information is ineffective for average people and lends to the mass destruction of some of my favorite house spiders, the huntsman and the wolf.  It is possible that a few recluses got killed as well.


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## Ungoliant (Nov 10, 2012)

Greenjewls said:


> My point is, when the masses are instructed to kill any brown spider with a "violin" on its "back", this is a death sentence for just about all house spiders.  I never meant to imply that recluses don't have a  violin shape on them, just that this little tidbit of general information is ineffective for average people and lends to the mass destruction of some of my favorite house spiders, the huntsman and the wolf.  It is possible that a few recluses got killed as well.


Not to mention that people can imagine violins on almost any part of a spider's body (not just the carapace). Unfortunately, a lot of people treat spiders as "dangerous until proven otherwise," and they'd rather kill them than take the time to find out whether their concern is justified.

I try to get people to focus on other features, like the eye arrangement, which could exclude 95% of spiders that people mistake for recluses. Hell, I'm still trying to convince locals that they're wrong when they they've been bitten by brown recluses or found brown recluses in their homes. (They're only found in the western tip of my state.)


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## Greenjewls (Nov 12, 2012)

Ungoliant said:


> Not to mention that people can imagine violins on almost any part of a spider's body (not just the carapace). Unfortunately, a lot of people treat spiders as "dangerous until proven otherwise," and they'd rather kill them than take the time to find out whether their concern is justified.
> 
> I try to get people to focus on other features, like the eye arrangement, which could exclude 95% of spiders that people mistake for recluses. Hell, I'm still trying to convince locals that they're wrong when they they've been bitten by brown recluses or found brown recluses in their homes. (They're only found in the western tip of my state.)


Great point.  I especially feel sorry for genus Kukulcania, the females are mistaken for black widows and the males are mistaken for brown recluses, especially the pale species of recluse in the US West.  This form of sexual dimorphism was probably intended to deter predators by mimicking these venomous spiders but has resulted in their being targeted by humans.


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