A few weeks ago, Darren found this spider on our garage in the middle of the night. Having never seen a spider such as this, he took a few snapshots to show our Clark Pest Control guy next time he came to spray the house. Well, Andrew our bug guy showed up last Wednesday (turns out he had just finished his Pandamania VBS at church - more about Pandamania coming soon!) and he had no idea what this spider was.
Since I am a closet detective, I got right on the case. When I zoomed in on the pic, I noticed two things: 1. it is hairy and 2. it appears to have 10 legs! I extensively researched (okay, so I googled) ten-legged spiders, and voila, got my answer. This is a solifugae!
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce to you, the camel spider, also known as a sun spider. Look at that sweet face - almost like a little spider-puppy! For the record, they only have 8 legs, with the final two just being "appendages" - but to me they are just legs.
These spiders are often found in Iraq and desert areas - but somehow it found it's way to Livermore. They can grow up to SIX INCHES LONG! And though they have really intimidating jaws, they are not venomous or dangerous. However, they have a reputation of being attack spiders because they are fast, they like shade, and they, well, sort of scream at times. Sooooo, imagine finding one of these in your shadow and you begin to back away, and it follows you...so you jog... and it speeds up in pursuit... you are screaming... IT is screaming... you get the picture. It would appear he is chasing you, when in reality he is just loving to hang out in the shade of your shadow!
This is the position it took with Darren, all threatening and stuff with his arms up. Not sure he realized how small he was compared to Dar.
1 comment:
O dear goodness! I like spiders but that one freaks me out. Aaaah! Screaming!
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