My cat brought one of these home when we lived in central America. I had no idea what it was, and I was terrified - I refused to believe the internet when they told me they were harmless and not venomous. It was a scary looking little alien.
The one pictured is much more open and spread out. Obviously getting carried in a cat’s mouth would put a tiny little creature like this in defense mode - mine was much more compact and I didn’t realize it was a spider / scorpion. Edit: the body was probably 3in/7cm long, a little shorter than credit card cut into an oval.
CRUCIO!
Domain Expansion!
I don’t like it one bit. I don’t want this thing grabbing onto me.
> Other scorpions
Tailless whip scorpions (aka whip-spiders) are not scorpions (order Scorpiones). They’re order Amblypygi, more closely related to spiders (Aranae) than to scorpions.
Doesn’t pygi mean butt in science Greek? And ambly means walk. Do they walk on their butts?
You’re close. It means blunt tail. You might be thinking of the Latin ambulo which means to walk. I do want to see what a tail-walker looks like now, though.
no i reject your reality and substitute my own it is funnier
I know this, and you know this, but MEME
also they bite like motherfuckers
Grab’n’bite
I think you are thinking of Vinegaroons - they spray you with acetic acid. AFAIK, amblypigids skewer their prey on arm spikes
is it like good vinegar or does it taste like bugs
*quick series of searches*
wait you’re right. I don’t think I was thinking of either of these. a childhood friend had various bugs as pets and would point out which ones liked to chomp. I may be lost now without his teaching
Mmm. Vinegar!
When I was a kid we’d move these plastic storage containers we had sitting in the backyard and these guys would always be under them. You can drop leaves, tiny pebbles, and other small bugs in front of them and they’ll grab it like this. It looks funny as hell.
Skeletor voice:” I’m gonna grab ya, NYAA!”
Me when I fucking GET you
I mean, i’m leaving the fucker alone if it so much as waves at me.
freaky arms.
Here’s a little bigger one. Real person, real video, no AI:
That was actually a fun video to watch. Such a freaky creature.
yeah, tho it worries me that people are keeping these things as pets, because the pet market is terrible about running species wild populations into the ground
Long arm Larry irl
a true outlaw star fan, obviously.
!awwnverts@lemmy.world would love this if you haven’t already posted it there 😄
Yoink!
Cool bros
