Camel spiders

[Gilberator]

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

 

[Tarantula_Hawk]

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

 

[VictorHernandez]

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.

 

[Greenjewls]

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

 

[Chris_Skeleton]

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....

 

[The Snark]

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?"

 

[MrCrackerpants]

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.

 

[The Snark]

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.

 

[Greenjewls]

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

 

[Ciphor]

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.

 

[The Snark]

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.

 

[Ciphor]

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/

 

[Greenjewls]

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!

 

[VictorHernandez]

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
View attachment 109571
"violin" on a household huntsman spider
View attachment 109572
"violin" on a brown recluse
View attachment 109573

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

 

[Ciphor]

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.

 

[Chris_Skeleton]

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.

 

[Ciphor]

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

 

[Ungoliant]

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.)

 

[MMAFogg]

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!!!!

 

[The Snark]

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.