Camel Spiders;You Just Got To Check This Out !!!

I live in South Australia and we have a fair few huntsmans, redbacks are usually in darker places which we dont come across as much. Even though huntsmans only bight and redbacks can kill, i'm way more scared of huntsmans. They still scare me to death. Now picture this. Being a seven year old boy in the front seat of a car, pulling down the sunvisor from teh roof of the car to get the sun out of your eyes and seeing a big scary huntsman under the sun visor and almost having a heart attack. And they wonder why I'm mentally disturbed.

Now how many stories do I have to tell, that involve me running away screaming... to getyou too believe I would die of a heart attack... i'm severly bug phobic

ok so here is two more... why am I ambarrassing myself like this??

My "get rick quick" friend.. loves to antagonize me... every saturday we'd meet at a friends house to play games.. about 6 of us in total. He and I are the only smokers and get kicked to the curb to indulge. During the summer when my bee alert status is high.. he will wait till I lapse in attention.. or look away... tickle my hair and go buzzzz... I jump, scream and run, only knowing to stop when I hear him cracking up.. and to make matters worse I don't think there was even one time I failed to fall for it.

Once while sitting around a picnic table with friends.. I saw something black and yellow headed toward me out of the corner of my eye... I leaped from the table and started running in circles around it... glances behind me confirmed that the "yellow and black" thing was chasing me. I was yelling for some help.. and begging someone to get the "bee" .. my friends were literaly doubled over laughing.... finaly someone took pity on me and told me it was a butterfly

bastet, you have forgot to mention our numerous erray of noahs and lethal snakes,not too forget the infamous Tassie devil and tiger.

Yeal, Adelaide has some beauties. I found a small scorpion in my bath in Adelaide once, no I wasn't in the bath at the time. Also came across a 9 inch long centipede in Adelaide, striped orange & black it was.

As for the huntsman in the car - memories. Had been talking to my friend in the seat behind me, then I turned back to the front - & there was a HUGE huntsman on the inside windscreen nearest me. Luckily I wasn't driving, & the driver had slowed right down to turn a corner.

Reflex - I pulled open the door screaming & jumped from the car. Hell that ground hurt.

Edit - but funnily enough, stefanclozza, I ain'y afraid of snakes! And our red-bellied black's positively handsome.

[edit on 21/6/04 by Bastet]

Snakes i dont mind...im actually quite fond of snakes.

Other bugs..yeah im cool...i leave them and they leave me...had a word to mother nature about that.

Spiders...*gets SA80 out*

Those things come near me...they aint gonna have legs no more!

How come u get all the good creepy crawlies?

dinna get me wrong...be my guest and keep them...but the biggest spider u get here is the west highlander spider.

Its about the size of a tarantula...maybe a wee bitty smalller...yes...upclose u can see its fangs.
Females are bigger than males but nothin new there! lol

worst they give u is like a bad nettle sting rash.

o my baset that could have been bad... glad it wasn't..
but it just goes to show how suprise visits by creepy crawlies effect our better judgement.

I encountered Camel Spiders (thats what we called them in SF) as they were found in the Saheel Desert of southern Tunsia.
They remain hidden under rocks (the area that is on the border of the sandy wastelands, is more like the lunar suface). They are attracted to the camel's body heat at night. They don't have to jump up to reach the camel's stomacks as the camels come down on all fours andcan be made to lay sideways for protection from the Saheel wind/sand storms. The spiders we encountered resembled more the Tarantula of the SW USA very brown and hairy and the bite is very distructive as its loaded with bacteria from decayed proteins that can cause a serious infection in the human body if not treated. The sand viper is another critter that is attrached to the camel's body heat and will also curl up with you at night and their bite is venomous.

The Trapdoor or more notorius Funnel web spider is more common to Australia and is also a bid nasty whose torso can easily reach 8-9 inches in lenght. The dish size is the span of the legs that can reach 12-14 inches.
This species is a very notable jumper as well.
For what its worth.

eww....nasty!!

Yeah that has to be one of the worst part of my tour...coming across those spiders....i was s**t scared...i aint afraid to say it.

A friend did tell me an interesting story tho...completly true according to her sister.

one of her teachers was living in america near the borders of mexico and and one day he was out driving and saw this cactus he liked...since it was small and he thought no one would miss it...he dug it up...planted it and took it home with him.
A few days later he was sitting at home havin a cold one when he saw something out the corner of his eye...the cactus looked like it had moved.
Shruggin it down to heat distortion he watched the game again until a while later it happened again.
Getting curious he got up and looked at it more closer....it was moving...more pulsing like a heart does. Freaked out he called the local uni and got in contact with the expert in animals and plants etc.....he described the situation....the uni told him to get everyone the hell out the house...close all the doors/vents and windows and to call the local enviroment control team.

doing so he freaked out and about an hour later he watched as several trucks etc came out the desert and into his driveway...the guys in suits went into the house armed with a very large glass box and a flame thrower....several minutes later they came back out with the cactus in the box and loaded it up onto the truck.
While the guy was explaining the charges to the man....the cactus basically exploded inside the glassbox and hundreds of baby spider tarantulas came scurrying out.

Basically tarantulas love catus's for nests...the moral of the story...dont pick up cactus' at the roadside...u nvr know the suprises u may get!!!

Right now I am in Spain in school, but I live in Mexico in the North with the Border in Texas, and we have this Camel spider, I do not know why but they appear suddenly, a I do not remember when I was growing up to ever see this type of spiders, but like 5 to 6 years back they appear, strange.

Take note that the pic shown in that link is TWO camel spiders hanging onto each other, not one huge one

Yea..... I did notice that d1k... but their still BIG!

We have big scorpians here, but it's the little bark scorpian that could kill ya! We didn't used to have the bark scorpian until some developer decided to bring in palm trees. They hide in the palm leaves and bark. The tarantulas make their run in October here. It's the males going out looking for the females. This year (knock-on-wood) the huge locus didn't show up yet. They were supposed to be here in May. I hate them because they can fly in your face. We also have the Black Widow spider with the red hour glass. There is also a desert recluse spider here. These guys have one nasty bite! Oh yea.....and lots of snakes. The Mohave Green being the worse.

Actually, ATS had a post on this sometime back.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Just remember to use your friendly neighborhood Boolean Search.

In my travels I've encountered some of the world's true nasties. I've never seen a Camel Spider, but when I was in South America, I saw some truly creepy looking spiders black with yellowish-green markings on their backsides, they weren't hairy at all and their bodies were somewhat shiney. One of the buggers must have hitched a ride in my bags because after returning I found on of them making a weird web on my balcony.

One of my less-pleasent encounters was at a friend's place in Vegas, she had a black widdow living in her lawn furnature, and sent me out with a can of spray to remove the problem. I emptied the entire can of raid on the spider, but that only seemed to anger it, so I pulled out a lighter and immolated the spider, glad she had metal lawn chairs.

May Peace Travel With You
~Astral

Those animals are not actually spiders since they have ten limbs. They are more commonly referred to as sunscorpions. We have some here in the United States, they live in the Southwest, but they usually only get to half that size. They are actually very peaceful creatures and make great pets.

Originally posted by UnusualMe
MY friend told me that in South America there are some.. just... HUGE spiders in the jungle.

EDIT
On second thought I think I will add some personal spider run ins.

My uncle was camping in California and was bitten by a spider. THis spider was either the wolf spider or one with the same type of corrosive venom. It attacked the fat in his leg and the doctors were tempted to amputate but my uncle protested. THey did save his leg but it is SWOLLEN... and it will probably stay that way.. there is also still the possibility of infection.. even though much time has passed.

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That sounds like a "Brown Recluse" or Fiddle back spider.

In CT..... probably harmless Wolf spiders.

I think your black widows are the same as Oz's redbacks, which do have a toxic bite, but it is seldom fatal. Wish I could say the same about our funnel-webs.

Can you imagine trying to spray a huntsman? I've nearly poisoned myself trying - even with the dedicated outdoor barrier-type spider sprays. Those brutes can jump too, & although they don't make webs, they still have the equipment. Oh the horrors of seeing one descend from the ceiling!

That cactus/spider story - I think that's on Snopes.com too. I avoid snopes - too big a time-waster for me!

Spiders are the one thing that really freak me out. And fortunately those spiders arent as bad as they say but nonetheless, I am all st with ever meeting one face to face.lol

speaking of spiders once again, I just remembered another memory this one only about 6 or 7 years ago. I lived in Cairns, Queensland for a while and it is always humid and tropical with rainforests everywhere . Behind our house was a huge rainforest and we used to get every type of creature you can think of near and sometimes getting into our house. Although I wasn't there on the several occasions when python snakes slithered under our coach, I was once getting ready for work, was in a rush and went into the garage to put on my shoes that I left by the door. I grabbed them and started putting them on in the car as my mum began to drive the car. I got my feet into them but it was bloody uncomfortable as my sock had gone the wrong way (you know when the seam bit at the front of the foot goes crooked and goes under your foot sometimes and you can feel a little lump). I pulled off the uncomfortable shoe and began yelling loudly as a squashed up spider began to stretch its legs back to shape (THE LONGEST LEGS I HAVE EVER PERSONALLY SEEN ON A SPIDER) I don't think it was a bird eating spider cause those ones have thicker bodies and legs but this spider had many HUGE legs, and thus was able to cover lots of distance quickly, so you can imagine how f&^king afraid I was when this angry spider who had almost been squashed at the end of my shoe began to run around my seat at a rapid pace. That was REALLY scary.

This is all great and Suuuuuper but- well. Sorry to kill your buzz but it's all a lie, baby. Allow me to sucker-punch this myth for you.

When I was a kid growing up in the rich desert of Eastern-Washington, I lived right next to a sandy open lot which connected to my front yard. Outside during the summer season, me and my friend Justin Brown would dig up junk and burn things in the desert, lifting up rocks and looking for lizards or what not. One of the most bizarre things we found was a little creature called a sun spider.

CAMEL SPIDER = SUN SPIDER
myth busted





Sun spiders are also know as windspiders and windscorpions. The order name is spelled Solfugida sometimes which adds to the confusion. They grow to an average 1-2 inches... not the size of your hand...

They can run very fast - "like the wind" - which is the source for the common name. Sun spiders are found primarily in drier parts of the state. They have strong jaws that protrude forward that are used to capture prey.

Yes, I agree. They are amazingly kick ass scary looking. But a little biology lesson: Insects/arthropods only grow to the size they do because if they grow any bigger, they'll be crushed by their own body weight. So, looking at an arthropod, such as a windscorpion, they do not have the right exoskeleton to support a size bigger than 1-2 inches. It's the same reason a shark can survie in the water, but as soon as it's tossed on land - it's own body weight will crush itself. Therefor, through SCIENCE - there is no such thing as a 7 inch camer spider. Take that, bitches.

This deserty creature brings me to a BREAKTHROUGH desert discovery. That's right, straight from the deserts of Iraq...




Bigger than a person, cuter than a panda bewa'


[edit on 6/28/2004 by Crispy]

I detest all eight-leggers and their kin...actually anything with more than four legs is suspect to me. Except octopuses, I really like those. I'm also allergic to spiders, but opposed to killing anything unless it seeks to eat me or I want to eat it...so when I see a spider I tend to just run away screaming like a banshee.
And I'm sorry I read all of this, I will NEVER visit Australia now!

Originally posted by stefanclozza
Are these babies also walking/crawling on the same planet as us????
They run ,SCREAM and eat flesh after anetheatising their victims.
Please ATS members tell me there NOT real.

Yes, they are here. They are called solifugids. They aren't as long as the mid-east variety, being only 2 and a half to 3 inches long. But they look identical, and have the same characteristics, except for the screaming! Whoa!!!
Everyone where I come from calls them "wind scorpions" because they hold up 2 of front legs, as they go. And it appears to be the claws of a scoropion.