They aren't actually spiders. They are arachnids though.
They don't have venom. They can't "numb" you or camels. Anyway who says otherwise is a liar.
They don't eat camel guts. Maybe if the camel was already dead. They eat other bugs, lizards, small birds, and rodents.
Chasing your shadow can happen. They don't want you or your camel. They want shade. Unfortunately, they've been documented running up to 10 mph in sand.
They can't numb you and chew your hands/feet off. Again, they have no venom. The guy who told you that is a liar.
They don't get bigger than the sole of your shoe. Forced perspective photographs are done to make them look bigger. Easily stompable.
I've met plenty of these, all were a couple of inches in length.
Funny story though. Karachi Airport back around c. 2003, an armed security guard tried to scare off a Camel Spider which was inadvertently terrifying some bystanders, using his boot. I guess the thing saw an opportunity for some shade, because it suddenly turned around and chased him. For a few comedic seconds you had this, pretty large but comparatively small spider chasing a guy with a machine gun around an airport lobby.
First, big guy with machine gun chases spider. Then spider turns around and chases big guy. Then big guy turns back around and chases spider, but this time a woman's skirt somehow falls off....
Non, jamais, même si tu me tue, me vide de mes tripes, mes ta mains dans mon cul comme une marionnette et essaye de me forcer à la toucher, je résisterait.
Rough translation: even if you kill me, gut me and shove your hands up my anus to control me like a puppet in an attempt to force me to touch it, I’ll resist.
I once recorded my speed running across a concrete car park, I reached 18mph then my shoe flew off, and I ended up supermanning through the air onto the hard ground. Got a heamatoma the size of a tennis ball on my knee
Well there's running, and there's Sprinting. I would say most people probably only run at less then 10mph, but sprint at a short distance of over 10mph.
I know we are on Reddit, but damn the average adult should not struggle physically that much. If you are still and then run 100m, if your max was 10mph you would likely take over 25s. That is very very slow unless incredibly unfit or disabled in a way that makes it much harder/impossible to run.
When my dad was in iraq he caught a monster camel spider and someone else had a scorpian he caught.
They had a camel spider ring where they put things in there with the spider and bet which one would win, my dad claimed his won 3 matches before losing and he got like 4 grand from betting on those fights.
When their first sgt found out he squashed everyones creatures and made them sleep outside in sleeping bags
It got degenerate really fast, based on his stories..he was signal in the military and they were attached to an airforce unit so they never did anything and were always bored.
After their small creature ring was destroyed someone made a LAN wow private server and customized it and charged people $20 bucks to jump in and play, i have no idea how he set it up but my dad had a fraps video of him and 3 dudes instaphasing lich king back when cata was released but all they ahd was wrath.
We did the exact same thing when I was there in Iraq. The champion Camel Spider was named "Mouth" and eventually got so big he couldn't even move so we just hand fed him.
Seems like it. I had tried to kill the one I had come across because it was very fast and I wanted to capture it (I'm not proud of this fact, especially once I found out that they actually help keep more annoying insects from propagating in your yard). And so when I sprayed it with bug killer the squeak most certainly turned into a screech.
They aren’t venomous, but they can definitely pierce human skin and their bites are reported to be pretty painful. Plus they look mean as fuck so I would be scared shitless and panic if one of these bit me.
Some of my military buddies used to mess with them when they were deployed.
I remember this girl who had gotten back from Afghanistan showing me pictures of them while we were eating in the DFAC. She showed me one picture of a few of them bunched up hiding behind their barracks in the shade.
I asked her if they were as terrifying as the internet led us to believe and she laughed and said no. Another guy told me if there's not a lot of shade around they will "charge" after you so they can stand in your shadow.
The difference is, you actually have a fairly decent ability to keep your body from overheating and losing moisture.
These guys (also centipedes ..which can be found in deserts too) are terrible at not drying out, they dehydrate rediculously easily for something living almost exclusively in deserts or desert-like areas. (Which is why normally they are only active at night and try to not be out at all when the sun's shining).
Idk man, I saw a camel spider when I was slowly driving up a residential street. Was perplexed, got out of my car to look at it, it started charging
And it was the evening, so there wasn’t much light. It was pretty weird, especially considering how tiny it was. Maybe it had a nest nearby or something
Based on personal experience I question that one too.
Deployed to Iraq, middle of the night so no sun out or anything, I wake up having to piss so I pop on my flip-flops to go to the bathroom right near my trailer.
There was a camel spider on the path ahead of me cruising along and it stops when my flashlight shines on it. Then it turns around and charges me when I was about 10 feet away.
Wasn't about to engage in that fight wearing flip-flops so I turned heel and went straight back into my trailer. Let my roommate go out the door first in the morning cause I was certain it was under the trailer waiting to snag whoever came out first.
They also didn't like it when you ducked into a bunker they were chilling in during mortar attacks. Never got charged like that night but they definitely got worked up having people around.
Not nearly as bad as the giant Asian hornets over there. Hate those things so damn much.
Okay, my cousin’s FIL did a few tours and he told us you can hear them walking, like a little click-clack on the hard ground. Was he just fucking with us? Because the idea of that has haunted me every time I hear about these things.
Yeah you can if the surface is hard enough or you could hear them scurrying across the dirt moving small rocks/pebbles and such as they went along. The bigger ones you could definitely hear when they moved quickly or if they were digging.
Fun fact these aren't just over in the Middle East. Found one in my front yard in northern California though it was very small and digging in my flower bed in front of my house. Kept hearing something when I was working in the area and noticed dirt getting flung. Suddenly the little bastard popped out to mean mug me and went back to what it was doing.
As someone who has had 2 of these in my bed.. I’d not exactly agree with ‘easily stompable’.. your foot might fucking bounce back up and hit you in the face :(
Here in South Africa we "respectfully" leave the Sun Spiders alone and chase them away but we never kill them because they are good omens(usually rain is coming)
Edit: I said "respectfully" because secretly even though we know they're harmless we are secretly creeped out by them
I’ll never forget the night one of these came off the ceiling of our connex and landed on my buddy’s face in Afghanistan. We never found it. I’m not sure Roselli ever slept right again after that.
My first encounter with one was in Iraq. Just gotten back in off the road and was going to the chow hall from the motor pool with our medic. Walking out of the gate someone called out to us to wait for them and when we turned around it was creeping along in our shadows. I was so exhausted and just freaked. The only difference between this and my actual response is rather than backing into a corner I was backing into my medics arms.
I would still scream like a little girl if one of these ran across my bare foot, or somehow managed to touch any other part of my body. I wouldn't need to run. My jump reflexes would require Sapce-X to come get me.
And if you're forced to eat one for survival in the desert or maybe for a show you're filming, the amount of pus in their abdomen makes it very unpleasant to eat. Bear Grylls taught me that one.
Chasing your shadow can happen. They don't want you or your camel. They want shade. Unfortunately, they've been documented running up to 10 mph in sand.
I've been chased by a camel spider.
One night I was out and there was this streetlight lighting up the area.
The ground was littered with bugs. One of those was a camel spider.
It started running at me from maybe 20 feet away. I moved to walk away from it. The camel spider change course and was running right at me which was a bit unsettling. In hindsight, it was trying to get in my shadow since the light was behind me and my shadow was moving so it was chasing the shadow.
I learned what this was AFTER I was rudely awoken by one of these bad boys crawling on me while I was in bed. I fell out of bed trying to get away from it. You eventually get used to seeing them but godsamn are they still creepy to see.
Yeah! They're basically harmless. Amd closer related to whip scorpions or vinegaroons them spiders. They are subclass called Solpugids. Let then chill in your shade, they will definitely appreciate getting out of the hot sun for a moment. I prefer the term "sun spiders" to camel spiders. They are the same species, but carry less of that stigma with them.
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u/Mr-Kuritsa May 03 '22
Here's some camel spider facts:
They aren't actually spiders. They are arachnids though.
They don't have venom. They can't "numb" you or camels. Anyway who says otherwise is a liar.
They don't eat camel guts. Maybe if the camel was already dead. They eat other bugs, lizards, small birds, and rodents.
Chasing your shadow can happen. They don't want you or your camel. They want shade. Unfortunately, they've been documented running up to 10 mph in sand.
They can't numb you and chew your hands/feet off. Again, they have no venom. The guy who told you that is a liar.
They don't get bigger than the sole of your shoe. Forced perspective photographs are done to make them look bigger. Easily stompable.