Camel spiders videos

Each country possess a range of flora and fauna that survive due to the most suitable climatic conditions. Some living species may be helpful to human society like herbs, some species could be harmful, and some neither harmful nor good. Such species probably get the most attention and fear. Some people out of fear will create a magnified negative image of some species even when they are not a hurdle to human society at any cost.

Camel spiders are species which fall under the above category. The other common name of these species are wind scorpion, sun scorpion, sun spider, etc. to be precise they are not spiders they are solifugae belonging to the class arachnidae.

Solifugae are carnivorous (flesh eating species) or omnivorous (eating every kind of food). They mainly feed on white ant called termites, small arthropods, honey bees, beetle etc. They never attack any living things which are gigantic to them unless they are threatened by them.

The word solifugae is a Latin word which imparts the meaning "away from sun". They generally run off from sunlight. They are inactive during day time and will come out of their place only during night time to find their preys. They were initially noticed during Persian Gulf War in 1991 then during Iraq war in 2003. These lead to an illusion that they are found only in the desert region. The truth is that some are inhabitating forest and grass land. But actually they are found in eastern and western hemisphere through out because of the humid and parched inhabit.

Females are comparatively larger than males while the latter have longer legs. As believed these species are not toxic and does not produce any anesthetic substances. There are over 50 species found in south west united states and around 240 species in South Africa.

Camel spider has long Pedi pals present which are similar to antennae in insects which act as a sense organ. These sense organs actually produce a false image like legs. Like all other pseudo scorpions they are short of back lungs. The idiosyncratic feature of this species is the huge chelicerae in attendance. There are a pair of chelicerae which posses a powerful pincer. They use Pedi pals to clasp their preys and shatter or incise in pieces with the help of the chelicerae. Because of the uncanny appearance they menace everybody but they are harmful insect unless they are troubled by us.

Observing Camel Spiders on video is probably a good way of learning their habits. I try to add more videos about other arachnids as well to fill up the space a little bit.

Additional camel spider videos (external) Ecologic Productions video on camel spiders