image via dangerouswildlife.com

The Camel Spider

This is a huge spidery scorpion creature and is belonged to the family that are an arthropod known as Solipugids. Unlike spiders they don’t spin a web or carry a venom and they live in the sand or under rocks. They got their name because they were first found in the corpse of a camel leading the finder to believe that it had killed a camel which in fact it was hiding there to catch and eat what ever came to eat the camel. They have eight legs like a spider but they also have the front claws of a scorpion minus the stinging tail.

You can find these creatures in the Middle East in desert areas and soldiers that are fighting in these areas come in contact with these camel spiders almost every day. They are fear less and have been known to attack these soldiers and larger animals. They are nest builders and use the hair off camels to build these homes.You only find these creatures in desert areas and czan also be found in parts of the US and Mexico.

Image via neatorama.com

True War Stories

Soldiers from the middle east have sent back photographs of these creatures along with story’s of their behaviour of eating birds and rodents and scorpions and other spiders and lizards.

Some have been seen as big as a side plate but the average size of these are about six or seven inches with a leg span of five inches still pretty big for any spider or a scorpion. The venom of a spider or the sting of a scorpion does not effect these creatures and they only travel in the shade leaving all the hunting to be done at night. They have been known to walk in the shade of a humans footsteps leading to the assumption that they stalk humans and follow them, this is not the case they are just using the shade to move around. If attacked they will attack back.

Camel spiders can move at 10 mph giving them the name of wind scorpion. They crush their prey to death with their big claws rather than poison them like their cousins the spider and scorpion. At night they are attracted to the light and often wander into tents and houses. They have no intentions of hurting humans or bigger creatures but they will attack if they are provoked. 

Image via camelspiders.net

These camel spiders can bite if they are annoyed, but are just like any other temperment of any other spider. If bitten it can leave a nasty open cut that may cause infection because of the small rodents they eat.

There was a report from a soldier in Riyadh in 2002-03 where he was stationed in a hanger and they would come in by the dozen or so when they saw the light at night time, he said that they couldn’t attack them because they would attack back, and they were freaked out as it was that they were coming in by the load, to upset them would only creep them more because of the speed they travel, even though they are soldiers, that would creep the best of them out, what they done was trapped them and any that didnt want to go into the trap they squashed, this would freak them out because of the size of them their insides would spray everywhere.

Image via camelspiders.net