Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2008 7:14:11 GMT 10
|
|
|
|
Post by mingle on Aug 30, 2008 12:46:23 GMT 10
Yeah, I think they're related to scorpions and harvestmen... Quite mean looking though... Would make a great pet! :-)
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2008 18:57:25 GMT 10
I think it would be a sure thing to, ahem, clear the bowels if it crawled up your leg   |
|
|
|
Post by JeffJ on Aug 31, 2008 8:51:05 GMT 10
The nasty solpugid!!!! These things have jaws like a can-opener. The species has a wide range, the ones from these parts get about two or three inches, but some forms in the middle east can get 6 inches! They can also run as fast as a man, which I find quite disturbing. They have no venom(don't need it!)but can bite very hard. Related to false scorpions(I think). One of the few creatures that really PO'ed my wife when I brought one home. Jeff ;D
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2008 11:42:21 GMT 10
Some of the soldiers doing tours in the ME circulated some good pix when they found them and some were surprisingly large. Give me a cute furry spider any day.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2008 13:11:49 GMT 10
The nasty solpugid!!!! These things have jaws like a can-opener. ....They can also run as fast as a man, which I find quite disturbing. They have no venom(don't need it!)but can bite very hard. Related to false scorpions(I think). One of the few creatures that really PO'ed my wife when I brought one home. Jeff ;D Tell her I can identify with that! Reminds me of a B-grade sci-fi from decades back - Bugs or Swarm or some such name. You poked a stick at'em and you couldn't even outrun them |
|
|
|
Post by johannes on Sept 1, 2008 23:57:45 GMT 10
Like scorpions, mites and harvestmen they are arachnid chelicerates, related to, but not identical with, spiders. The fifth pair of legs are actually not legs, but pedipalps. Pedipalps are the second pair of appendages of an arachnid, homologous to the mandibles of an insect.
The pincers of a scorpion are pedipalps, as are those boxing-glove like sexual organs you can see in male spiders.
BTW, a few primitive relic species of true spiders with a segmented abdomens - the Mesothelae - still exist in Southeast Asia. The dog-sized Carboniferous Mesothelae in Walking with Monsters were, of course, entirely fictional.
|
|
