Friday, July 22, 2005

There's always questions about Camel Spiders in Iraq

I've posted a short video of a camel spider eating a lizard taken by some of my guys in Iraq, I have more too (spider and mouse, spider and scorpion, etc) this one was the clearest of the bunch. If you have arachnophobia, I'd advise you not to click on the link, it is fairly yucky. This speciman was about the size of my hand spread out, maybe 5 inches across. Camel spiders aren't really spiders, they have 10 legs and 2 eyes and belong to an order of non-spider arachnids called Solifugae. They are aggressive and believe me, it hurts bad when they bite (taking a chunk out, story for another day) but non-venomous. From observation, I think they only live for a year, you get there in the early spring and the ones you see are fairly small and as the summer progresses, they get bigger and bigger. Not very bright either, they'll chase lights, shadows and strings but they move super fast and when ones coming up your pant leg with it's fangs spread, it'll make you scream like a girl and dance about.

Here's another camel spider video, there's also some more info to be found here

Update 12 Nov 06 Here's a video I titled Marines Vs Camel Spider.

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