Whip spider mother

Description:

Whip spider mother with her young. Spotted 50M in un-named cave, Brgy. Linmansangan, Alaminos City, Pangasian.

Habitat:

The characteristic trait that gave the whip spiders their name is the extremely elongated pair of first walking legs, which in contrast to the situation in spiders cannot be used for locomotion. An elongation of the first walking leg pair also occurred in the Uropygi, but by far not in the same degree as it is the case in the whip spiders. The perpetual motion of the first pair of elongated walking legs may remember of the slash of whips (Weygoldt, 2000). Also characteristic for whip spiders is the presence of raptorial spined pedipalps, that can attain a considerable length in many species; raptorial spine pedipalps can also be found in the Uropygi. One of the most prominent traits that distinguish the whip spiders from the Uropygi is that the latter possess a “tail“ that consists of an extremely elongated multisegmented telson, whereas the whip spiders do not (Weygoldt, 2000). -http://www.panarthropoda.de/sub/allgemeines/geisselspinnenen.php

Notes:

Photo by Jerry Rendon