whip spiders
May 24, 2021 8:36 AM   Subscribe

Making Sense of the Great Whip Spider Boom "She [Hebets] couldn’t stop looking at the creature’s front legs. These are the whips that give whip spiders their name — elongated, antenna-like — and they were sweeping around in all directions, as if piecing together a picture of the world. Even now, over 20 years later, she isn’t sure how to describe the grace of that movement. It was like a blade of grass fluttering in the wind, if a blade of grass were purposeful. It was like an octopus tentacle. “I just immediately fell in love,” she said."
posted by dhruva (14 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Note: would be nice to have a thread without kill-it-with-fire type comments
posted by dhruva at 8:38 AM on May 24, 2021 [21 favorites]


This is really amazing. It makes me so happy to know how much there is still to discover in our world. Thank you for sharing.
posted by Zumbador at 9:04 AM on May 24, 2021


"The whip spider, or tailless whip scorpion, is neither a spider nor a scorpion."

There’s a Western Australia Museum video about halfway through that manages to be extra scuttlesome, and makes the whips look a lot like radar sweeps.
posted by clew at 9:15 AM on May 24, 2021 [1 favorite]




one even had a cameo in a Harry Potter film.

I just had to look this up, so for anyone else who's wondering, it was Goblet of Fire.
posted by mstokes650 at 9:21 AM on May 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


those mouthparts!
posted by Going To Maine at 9:24 AM on May 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


I remember that scene vividly, I think they were smart in choosing an animal that looked foreign and "scary" to most people, to really drive home the point about how disgusting it was to take control of another being's actions. I was the kid that cried when my dad found a roach in the house and would kill it. I've always been a champion of the unloved, bats and rats and snakes and spiders and other creepy crawlies.

Anyway, not to derail. The way it's knees (?) are pointed to bend inward and over it's abdomen when it walks, combined with the folded-in mouth parts, I can't help but think that it looks like it's in a continuous bow.
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:31 AM on May 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


But is a whip spider the right pet for you?

If you love arachnids but don't actually love to see them, they're the perfect pet...ours has been buried underground for months, emerging for just a few minutes to tank up on water before burrowing again.
posted by mittens at 9:41 AM on May 24, 2021 [7 favorites]


The "is this the right pet for you" video has auto-generated-closed-captioning and it went with with "taylor swift scorpion" for these and that is now the only name I will ever call these gorgeous critters
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:41 AM on May 24, 2021 [12 favorites]


But is a whip spider the right pet for you?

I did not expect that video to be so literal!
posted by pangolin party at 11:45 AM on May 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


These are fascinating creatures, but nowhere near as fascinating as the people who would even consider them as pets.
posted by tommasz at 1:46 PM on May 24, 2021 [2 favorites]


I saw these in a Belize cave 25 years ago, along with very big hairy spiders running along the floor. The cave was completely black during the day, so we had the thrill of seeing them on the walls around us when our headlamps illuminated them. The whip spiders were very non threatening compared to the 8 legged werewolves on the ground. I’ll try to dig up my photos in an album so where.
posted by waving at 3:24 PM on May 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


I decided to check to see if these are indigenous to my area, since the climate here is apparently the right habitat — while we don't have the tailless variety, there is apparently the Taiwan Whip Scorpion (台灣鞭蠍), also known as the "Acid Bug" (醋酸蟲), since it can spray acid out of its tail. I'll keep an eye out for them in the future, it's always fun to know what bugs are around. I also found this page which claims that there are 438 of them in Ithica, NY???

Personally, these are more crawly than I'd want as a pet, but I sent that video to a partner of mine, whose response was "It's cuuuute". I see it, but the claws still wig me out.
posted by wesleyac at 7:58 PM on May 24, 2021


These frequently appeared in my middle school gym in Nevada, and I was terrified of them, but I’m going to work on repeating “Taylor Swift scorpion” to myself and see if it helps.
posted by naoko at 8:52 PM on June 7, 2021


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