[Xeo]

So I got an e-mail today from someone who wants my help in identifying this creature. I have no clue what it is. Apparently the person who found it lives in Canada. Any clues?

Spider (large picture)

[gorickey]

Ewwwww....

[nonhuman]

Cool. I've seen those before (not live ones), but I can't remember what they're called. If it were me, I'd name it Joe.

[lil'babykitten]

Those spiders give you special powers...
It's a claw spider btw

[olePigeon]

Tastes like chicken.

[ryju]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
Those spiders give you special powers...
It's a claw spider btw

I see I'm not the only one who can read filenames! This is one for our side

[rezzi]

It's from 'Alien(s)'. Whatever they named that species, that's it. A 'Face Grabbing Spider', I'd call it.

[Xeo]

Originally posted by ryju:
I see I'm not the only one who can read filenames! This is one for our side

I was given the picture (actually just the link) and I assumed the person named it that filename just 'cause it looked like it had claws. I didn't know it was the actual name of the spider.

[edit] After checking online encyclopedias and dictionaries with no results on "claw spider," are you sure that's the correct name?

[keekeeree]

*shiver*

Don't know its name, but I know I wouldn't want to find it crawling across my ceiling!

[Axo1ot1]

Originally posted by keekeeree:
*shiver*

Don't know its name, but I know I wouldn't want to find it crawling across my ceiling!

Jesus. Looks like you'd need a shotgun at least to get it off the ceiling. Not the type that I would heard onto a pice of paper for dumpin' out the window for sure.

[iWrite]

My guess is that it's some kind of a water spider.

The length of the legs would indicate that it would need weight dispersed across a wide space in order to not break the surface tension as it goes across the surface of the water.

I'll see what else I can find out but that's my guess.

[Turias]

Originally posted by iWrite:
My guess is that it's some kind of a water spider.

It uses those pincers to catch trout.

[d0ubled0wn]

New desktop pic, thanks!

[Xeo]

Originally posted by d0ubled0wn:
New desktop pic, thanks!

Ugh, I couldn't stare at that thing all day...

[iWrite]

Funny, Xeo!



It would be a GREAT pic to download to your boss's desktop so he or she can see it staring back at them first thing in the morning!

[Tulkas]

I don't have time to narrow it down but it is a type of Whip Spider. Kind of hard to believe its in Canada since I didn't know we had those.

Try the book "Whip Spiders" by Peter Weygoldt.

[Oneota]

Ugh...it's in need of a good squishing, whatever it is.


*Splurt!*

[voyageur]

I think it's actually a whip scorpion (or maybe that's another common name for whip spider, Tulkas?).

See, it has 4 pairs of walking legs, plus the two claws.
http://www.calacademy.org/science_no..._scorpion.html

[Nonsuch]

Judging by them pincers, it must need to tackle some pretty big prey, at least big relative to its body size. <shudder>

A little digging around leads me to think your critter may be of the order amblypygi, or more commonly, a whip-spider.



[Edit: Posted before I saw Tulkas' reply and those that followed. Great minds and all that, you know. ]

[residentEvil]

and here is one with her babies...very cute!

http://www.einet.dk/galleri/Damon_di...th_newborn.htm

[fireside]

thanks. now i'm going to be scared for the rest of the night.

[iWrite]

Where do they live? What do they eat? Very interesting!

Looks like something from Fear Factor, which we're watching right now actually.

(Right now they're eating ground up beetles, worms, and scorpions...)

[Eriamjh]

I will name him George.

[Axo1ot1]

Approximately posted by iWrite:
...we're watching Fear Factor right now actually.

Ok it's official. You are the worst person in the world.

[ryju]

Originally posted by Eriamjh:
I will name him George.

I will name him EDUARDO!

[SamuraiDL]

i knew a girl once who had those things crawling out of her snatch!

[iWrite]

I'm the "worst person in the world" because my family chooses to watch a show?

I have a family of all MEN here at the house! I'm kind of outnumbered on choice of television shows.

Besides, they love to watch Vegas afterwards because of all of the scenes of naked or near-naked beautiful women.

About the spider, it's a cool creature, but wouldn't want to come across one in my bathroom. When I was living in Hawaii I had a 12-inch HUGE centipede drop off of the wall and slither across the floor towards my bathtub -- where I was taking a bath. I'll NEVER forget the size of that thing. HUGE.

Creepy!

[Vader�s Pinch of Death]

Sweet Jesus, as far as I know that thing is NOT from Canada. The worst thing we got is a rattlesnake and a black widow spider. Well and bears.

[anti-sleep]

Boris.

[CMYKid]

my Field Guide to Morth American Insects is comin' up dry on that on., the picture is kinda cropped tho, those first pair of 'legs', are they footed exactly like the others? I ask because they don't totally look articulated like actual legs, which'd make it NOT a spider.

Either way I'm leaning towards the first thoughts about a native water insect...those legs wouldnt be that useful on land.

[ambush]

Originally posted by voyageur:
I think it's actually a whip scorpion (or maybe that's another common name for whip spider, Tulkas?).

See, it has 4 pairs of walking legs, plus the two claws.
http://www.calacademy.org/science_no..._scorpion.html

I <3 women with biological skills

[keekeeree]

Originally posted by Turias:
It uses those pincers to catch trout.

[Tulkas]

Originally posted by voyageur:
I think it's actually a whip scorpion (or maybe that's another common name for whip spider, Tulkas?).

See, it has 4 pairs of walking legs, plus the two claws.
http://www.calacademy.org/science_no..._scorpion.html

No, a whip scorpion is basically a scorpion with a whip-like tail.

I don't believe that it is a true spider.

What exactly does it need those pincers for if its a water strider

[Tulkas]

K, here is the definitive answer:

Its an arachnid but not a true spider. Its related to whip scorpions and whip spiders but is neither. Its an amblypygid (meaning "blunt butt"), and god knows how the hell it got to canada. Its definitely a Stygophrynus but exactly which I have no idea. Apparently they've only been found in tropical environments so I'd love to know how one got to canada.

Oh, and don't worry: they are apparently harmless since they have no venom and are scared of pretty much everything. Here are a couple links: http://www.evergreen.edu/ants/alasta.../parvulus.html http://www.americanarachnology.org/g...blypygids.html http://www.godofinsects.com/museum/d...6547d3c00e1dbd

[d4nth3m4n]

Originally posted by iWrite:
When I was living in Hawaii I had a 12-inch HUGE centipede

i bet your husband loves how you mistake something 4 inches long for something 12" long.

ill bet my life that it was not a foot long.

[Vader�s Pinch of Death]

Originally posted by Tulkas:
god knows how the hell it got to canada.

Well I don't think he found it crawling around in his house up here.

Heck this is what I have hanging my my laundry room and none of these were found in my backyard:

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by d4nth3m4n:
i bet your husband loves how you mistake something 4 inches long for something 12" long.

ill bet my life that it was not a foot long.

I believe you owe somebody your life.

Certain Scolopendra species can grow to 12".

[d4nth3m4n]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
I believe you owe somebody your life.

Certain Scolopendra species can grow to 12".

they in hawaii though? i thought they were more in the guam, Micronesia area. like the brown tree snake.

[Cipher13]

They are definitely present in Hawaii, though I'm not sure which species exactly.

[d4nth3m4n]

according to my girlfriends entomology text:

adult giant red peruvian centipedes (scolopendra gigantea) grow up to 25cm (10") long, making them the largest centipedes in the world

ill take their word on this one. so i guess i get to keep my life, but just barely. that'll teach me. i was in hawaii for 5 years going to school, and i caught no word of a 12" centipede. youd think that something like that would get a lot of talk. maybe they just dont want to scare all the ha'ole tourists away.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by d4nth3m4n:
according to my girlfriends entomology text:



ill take their word on this one. so i guess i get to keep my life, but just barely. that'll teach me. i was in hawaii for 5 years going to school, and i caught no word of a 12" centipede. youd think that something like that would get a lot of talk. maybe they just dont want to scare all the ha'ole tourists away.

Barely indeed.

10" is close enough to a ', IMO.

But I digress, it's not me that would've benefitted from this anyway

[Tulkas]

Originally posted by d4nth3m4n:
i bet your husband loves how you mistake something 4 inches long for something 12" long.

ill bet my life that it was not a foot long.

ROLFLMAO

[Tulkas]

Originally posted by SamuraiDL:
i knew a girl once who had those things crawling out of her snatch!

Next time you feel like sharing, don't.

[iWrite]

Okay, so maybe I was off by two inches.

But barely!

This is the thing:

We lived in an area known as Pearl City when we first lived there -- Pacific Heights/Palisades. Overlooks Pearl City, actually. (Later we moved to Makakilo -- much newer -- overlooks the west coast of Oahu and Barbers Point.)

Anyway, we were way up at the top and our house was on a canyon/ravine (like most of the homes -- it is in the Hawaiian hills/mountains after all) and our backyard was actually a huge deep slope. We had a deck and that's about it.

Well, after we saw this HUGE centipede we had an exterminator come to the house to see where it had come from. He went around in the house then checked under the deck. He came in about 15 minutes later and said, "You guys have a huge problem, a problem that I cannot take care of." He took us down and around and under the deck to look at a huge -- like 4 feet tall -- mound. Upon closer inspection you could see that it was CENTIPEDES living in it -- they had a huge hill that they were living in!

We had to call the University of Hawaii and get their entomology department to come out and do something about it. They loved it -- they were taking pictures of it and documenting it. Then they took it apart somehow and removed them. There were, apparently, thousands of centipedes of all sizes living in that thing.

We learned some rather unpleasant facts about them, also. Such as the fact that they will eat small animals. They will eat your pet's food out of the bowl. They are tenacious. They are hard to eradicate. They will live in your drains and come up through the drains into your home. THEY ARE HUGE.

Out of all of the horrible bug experiences in my life, bees included, that was the worst. It was like something out of a Stephen King horror novel.

[keekeeree]

Originally posted by iWrite:
There were, apparently, thousands of centipedes of all sizes living in that thing.

That deserves another:

*shiver*

As general rule, I hate bugs (except ladybugs...they're pretty cool). They don't scare me as much as they give me the wee-bee-gee-bees (do you suppose that phrase comes from "We be Bee Gees"? 'Cause they give me the wee-bee-gee-bees too )

So why do I keep coming back to this thread? Morbid curiousity I guess In fact, after the page loaded, I speed scrolled past all the images (not looking) just to get to the new posts.

[d4nth3m4n]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
Barely indeed.

10" is close enough to a ', IMO.

But I digress, it's not me that would've benefitted from this anyway

take note, it is a peruvian variety that gets that big too. i dont know what hawaii has, but i still dont think they are much more than 5" tops. still a big scary poisonous insect no matter how you slice it.

iWrite: were you in hawaii on some sort of military visit? i know pearl city is mighty close to pearl harbor and scofield.

take a look

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by d4nth3m4n:
take note, it is a peruvian variety that gets that big too. i dont know what hawaii has, but i still dont think they are much more than 5" tops. still a big scary poisonous insect no matter how you slice it.

iWrite: were you in hawaii on some sort of military visit? i know pearl city is mighty close to pearl harbor and scofield.

take a look

Yes, that's Scolopendra subspinipes. I wasn't talking about that particular species.

As I said, I'm not sure of the scientific name of the species I speak of, but I know it isn't that. Might be the Haitian variety (which is found on Hawaii)? I don't remember, but it isn't only this Peruvian variety that gets that big; several Scolopendra species do.

[Tulkas]

Originally posted by keekeeree:
That deserves another:

*shiver*

As general rule, I hate bugs (except ladybugs...they're pretty cool). They don't scare me as much as they give me the wee-bee-gee-bees (do you suppose that phrase comes from "We be Bee Gees"? 'Cause they give me the wee-bee-gee-bees too )

So why do I keep coming back to this thread? Morbid curiousity I guess In fact, after the page loaded, I speed scrolled past all the images (not looking) just to get to the new posts.

I hate bees. They scare me not because they're scary always creeping up on me and I think they're wasps or hornets. I'm fine with any bug so long as it hasn't got wings.

[MindFad]

That's an awesome-looking spider. IT TOTALLY SHOULD GET ITS OWN SPOT ON FEAR FACTOR. DO YOU FEAR IT!?

The claws look pretty nifty, too. How big is it anyway?

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by MindFad:
That's an awesome-looking spider. IT TOTALLY SHOULD GET ITS OWN SPOT ON FEAR FACTOR. DO YOU FEAR IT!?

The claws look pretty nifty, too. How big is it anyway?

It's not a spider