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Sunspider

Solifugae

Description:

Spider with fangs?

Habitat:

Found crawling through the garage

Notes:

Last picture is the underside

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11 Comments

hilfire
hilfire 9 years ago

That makes more sense, thanks for helping me out!

AshleyT
AshleyT 9 years ago

Ok, let me see if I can get this to make sense. Within the kingdom Animalia, we will look at the phylum of Arthropoda.
Arthropoda includes insects, arachnids, myriapods (millipedes/centipedes), and crustaceans. Within that, we go down to arachnids.
There are 11 extant orders of arachnids. Spiders are their own order, as are scorpions, harvestmen, solifugids (what you have here), pseudoscorpions, and more. So all of these groups are arachnids, but as you see, spiders and solifugids are separate orders within the class Arachnida. So they are related, but are very different things. Here's a link that explains it too: http://www.solpugid.com/Introduction.htm...

hilfire
hilfire 9 years ago

I'm just trying to understand this bug LOL

AshleyT
AshleyT 9 years ago

Again, not a spider. They are an arachnid, but they are a completely separate order of arachnid than spiders are. Just as your quote says, they are an arachnid, a relative of a spider. That does not make them a spider. So, again, please remove this from the "International Spider Survey" mission as this is NOT a spider.

hilfire
hilfire 9 years ago

I double checked and the Colorado State University Extension entomologist and professor, bioagricultural sciences and pest management states the following:
Sunspiders are unusual arachnids, relatives of "true" spiders and scorpions.

hilfire
hilfire 9 years ago

If it's not a spider what is it?

AshleyT
AshleyT 9 years ago

I have removed this from the "International Spider Survey" mission as this is not a spider.

hilfire
hilfire 9 years ago

Thank you

AshleyT
AshleyT 9 years ago

Hi hilfire, I have removed your ID suggestion as there is no need to suggest an ID on your own spotting :) Simply click the "edit this spotting" button in the upper right and enter in the information there. Let us know if you need any help doing this!

ForestDragon
ForestDragon 9 years ago

This cool Arachnid is called a Solifugid. They are also called Windscorpions, Sun Spiders or Camel Spiders but they are not scorpions or spiders. They are not venomous but they can bite in self defense. They are predatory. http://bugguide.net/node/view/7570
http://bugguide.net/node/view/7570/bgpag...

hilfire
Spotted by
hilfire

Edinburg, Texas, USA

Spotted on Oct 26, 2014
Submitted on Oct 28, 2014

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