# Camel spiders



## TGod (Jan 9, 2012)

OR sun scorpions whatever you call it.  Tarantulas are one thing but these things are the things garanteed to scare my family off.getting one Is on my without for someday but I'm definitely in no rush at the moment as I'm still cloudy on how big they get or how difficult they are to keep. Any one else thought about getting one or better got one already?


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## AshLee (Jan 9, 2012)

Solifugae is what I call them. They were my whole last (last) year, since I found the first one scamper across the doorstep and we chased him up a wall, then later around the bathroom. My only male to date. Found a female in the same spot, same hour, one week later. My next came a month later, after I had pitfalls put up. Gorgeous purple hue on that female. Later I went out one night to check, and only because I was using a flashlight in the dark, did I notice that I had one dozen little solpugid babies in my trap, the size of a tiny ant, with one lone juvenile female who was my longest lived, but didn't survive hibernation. Found my last six months ago, currently awaiting warmer weather so they'll come back out. The longest any of mine lived was the juvenile, she lasted six months. The shortest, was six days, my first, the male. This was before I had ever owned any tarantulas and any experience I had was with wild caught specimen and I knew nothing about proper keeping of inverts. I have been wanting to test out any and everything that I have learned and apply it, ideally with a dozen specimens to test variables. I studied them constantly and kept the tank of whoever I had at the time, by me for at least eight hours daily. But I only had two species, all solifugae vary greatly. I had also experienced no aggression or defensiveness from any of my females, but had never interacted with the male to tell. The male was more likely to eat though, one female never ate, the other ate more vegetation than insects.

I have pictures of everyone, but my connection isn't good enough to upload the resized files, and the ones already uploaded are too large. I would be happy to share them if anyone is interested and messages me though.

Edit: But apparently one of the pictures decided to stay. That was the second solpugid, my first female.


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## TGod (Jan 9, 2012)

AshLee said:


> Solifugae is what I call them. They were my whole last (last) year, since I found the first one scamper across the doorstep and we chased him up a wall, then later around the bathroom. My only male to date. Found a female in the same spot, same hour, one week later. My next came a month later, after I had pitfalls put up. Gorgeous purple hue on that female. Later I went out one night to check, and only because I was using a flashlight in the dark, did I notice that I had one dozen little solpugid babies in my trap, the size of a tiny ant, with one lone juvenile female who was my longest lived, but didn't survive hibernation. Found my last six months ago, currently awaiting warmer weather so they'll come back out. The longest any of mine lived was the juvenile, she lasted six months. The shortest, was six days, my first, the male. This was before I had ever owned any tarantulas and any experience I had was with wild caught specimen and I knew nothing about proper keeping of inverts. I have been wanting to test out any and everything that I have learned and apply it, ideally with a dozen specimens to test variables. I studied them constantly and kept the tank of whoever I had at the time, by me for at least eight hours daily. But I only had two species, all solifugae vary greatly. I had also experienced no aggression or defensiveness from any of my females, but had never interacted with the male to tell. The male was more likely to eat though, one female never ate, the other ate more vegetation than insects.
> 
> I have pictures of everyone, but my connection isn't good enough to upload the resized files, and the ones already uploaded are too large. I would be happy to share them if anyone is interested and messages me though.
> 
> Edit: But apparently one of the pictures decided to stay. That was the second solpugid, my first female.


You found that on your doorstep?? I could never find anything that cool where I come from, England is so boring and grey.


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## Cheshkitty (Jan 9, 2012)

I found one of these in Western colorado he/she was about 3 1/2 to 4 inches long. I caught it in a bucket and handled it all day then let it go at night. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen so it got my curiousity going. After doing tons of research I stumbled across what it was. After reading I found that they are highly aggressiv and they bite hurts like an SOB. I was surprised because the one I caught was very docile and just like to crawl across my hand. It is weird looking back on the fact because I have a huge fear of wood louse spiders. their jaws resemble those spiders yet I had absolutely not fear handling the weird creature. It was the first and last time I had ever seen one. They are cool though


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## Ciphor (Jan 9, 2012)

TGod said:


> You found that on your doorstep?? I could never find anything that cool where I come from, England is so boring and grey.


Umm, england has some fricken amazing species. I would give my left *** for some of the Agelenids you guys have over there. Someone just posted from the UK an image of what is probably _Steatoda paykulliana_, so ya. Go out and hunt, you guys have an amazingly cool fauna, one of the best urban faunas around in my opinion.


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## Tarantula_Hawk (Jan 9, 2012)

Ciphor said:


> Umm, england has some fricken amazing species. I would give my left *** for some of the Agelenids you guys have over there. Someone just posted from the UK an image of what is probably _Steatoda paykulliana_, so ya. Go out and hunt, you guys have an amazingly cool fauna, one of the best urban faunas around in my opinion.


And most of the amazing species are either extremely rare and/or localized, or native to the Mediterranean area (except yea the large Agelenids). The spider fauna over here instead, is truly amazing and extremely diverse. 

PS: Sorry for the OT.


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## Ciphor (Jan 9, 2012)

Tarantula_Hawk said:


> And most of the amazing species are either extremely rare and/or localized, or native to the Mediterranean area (except yea the large Agelenids). The spider fauna over here instead, is truly amazing and extremely diverse.
> 
> PS: Sorry for the OT.


Some of the exceptionally long legged _Tegenaria_ *droll*


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## TGod (Jan 9, 2012)

Ciphor said:


> Umm, england has some fricken amazing species. I would give my left *** for some of the Agelenids you guys have over there. Someone just posted from the UK an image of what is probably _Steatoda paykulliana_, so ya. Go out and hunt, you guys have an amazingly cool fauna, one of the best urban faunas around in my opinion.


Would that be the false widow found in south England?? I've never had the pleasure of seeing these before I've only really seen four kinds. We got the wolf spider, the garden spider, one we like to call the daddy long legs and then there's the cool crab spider which I only really saw when I was younger. None of these bite or are in anyway dangerous.  The biggest native one I've seen was probably a 3"-4" wolf spider sitting on our kitchen door frame which is pretty humongous for a spider around here. That quickly made friends with my Hoover lol. You in know what though if I see a falsy I'm gonna catch It and upload a pic for you guys even though I still think England spiders along with all it's wildlife is pretty dull.


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## Deroplatys (Jan 10, 2012)

Nah England does have some crap species, the few interesting things we have everyone else has either got the same or bigger.


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## TGod (Jan 10, 2012)

Deroplatys said:


> Nah England does have some crap species, the few interesting things we have everyone else has either got the same or bigger.


The only cool ones we get are what comes over in the bannanas, mind you I read somewere that some g.rosea's had escaped from a zoo and are surviving up north in England.


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## zonbonzovi (Jan 10, 2012)

AshLee, is that from S. Oregon?  I knew they were there but had no idea it was such a pretty species.


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## Bugs In Cyberspace (Jan 11, 2012)

Here's one from near Bly, Oregon. I cropped off the back half of the photo because I unfortunately squished the abdomen while rock-flipping. It's a pinkish-purple too.


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## Alireza (Jan 12, 2012)

Currently I've got one of these that i caught 6 months ago. The only problem is, it's not eating! (which is quite unusual for a solpigud)


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## Bugs In Cyberspace (Jan 13, 2012)

If it's still alive at six months, that's also highly unusual for a solpfpfugidaeae (I can never decide how to spell that word since it is spelled so many diff. ways)! (the search engines love me right now!)

Are you sure it's alive? 

A collector from Iran...very cool!


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## Alireza (Jan 13, 2012)

Yes, it's still alive. He was eating like horses in his first two weeks with me. but now, he just tries to run away from the prey. maybe premolting?


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## MrCrackerpants (Jan 13, 2012)

Alireza said:


> Yes, it's still alive. He was eating like horses in his first two weeks with me. but now, he just tries to run away from the prey. maybe premolting?


Cool. Got an pictures? How big is it? Our local West Texas species is not so big and the biggest one I have found is 2.5 inches.


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## Alireza (Jan 14, 2012)

I'll take some picture soon. he is a little fella too, about 3 inches.


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## MrCrackerpants (Jan 15, 2012)

Alireza said:


> I'll take some picture soon. he is a little fella too, about 3 inches.


Thanks for the pics in advance.


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## Bugs In Cyberspace (Jan 17, 2012)

No joke, this US one weighed in with a three inch legspan. That's an adult cricket!

[YOUTUBE]AMuBXLjwuok[/YOUTUBE]


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## MrCrackerpants (Jan 17, 2012)

Bugs In Cyberspace said:


> No joke, this US one weighed in with a three inch legspan. That's an adult cricket!
> 
> [YOUTUBE]AMuBXLjwuok[/YOUTUBE]


Where is that one from?


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## Alireza (Jan 18, 2012)

Mine is molting! hope he makes it! It's very rare I believe?!


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## Bugs In Cyberspace (Jan 18, 2012)

The one in the video was collected in central Arizona.

We'd love to see photos of the animal going through the molting process too, Alireza! Does it eat the molted skin?


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## Scythemantis (Jan 19, 2012)

I have heard some say that these can actually live a couple years depending on how they're kept. It was commonly believed that they were fast-living creatures who needed to eat constantly, but others have kept them like you would a scorpion, with less frequent feedings and lots of hiding places, and found that they overwinter like a vinegarone.


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## Exoschel69 (Jan 24, 2012)

i found a vinegarone in my bathroom when i was ten. i captured it in a jar and showed my mom and she screamed and i dropped the jar. she jumped on the counter as i ran to find another jar to capture my precious new pet


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## Alireza (Feb 5, 2012)

Well, mine survived the molting and it's in a superb shape right now. but it's still not eating :-|


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## yodaxtreme545 (Feb 6, 2012)

This is one I found in Baghdad, Iraq during my 1st tour. Enjoy!

Reactions: Like 1


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## kenzie (Feb 11, 2012)

We find them all the time during the summer down here in southern Utah. Just last summer we actually caught a plump female in a camping site called Pine Valley, which is about 45 min from St. George. We knew she was gravid and sure enough she laid eggs in our care about 2 days later. We incubated the eggs and got most of them to hatch. Watching them develop from eggs into 1 instant was so weird, but very cool! Very neat little critters. We are currently keeping one now we found in our home, which is a common thing, from early fall and have kept it alive for about 3 months. We'll upload a picture later. I would love some of those black solifugids, they are so sick!


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## Tleilaxu (Feb 11, 2012)

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?59006-solifugids-actually-lives-longer-than-we-think

Read this whole thread.


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## Alireza (Feb 14, 2012)

photo of mine, along his exuvium:
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/gallery/showimage.php?i=24835&c=6


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## tradepopo (Feb 14, 2012)

collector  very nice!


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