Video of Camel Spider eating a lizard

January 24, 2006 5:19 PM

YUCK! A camel spider eats a lizard.
posted by obeygiant (43 comments total)

This aggression... you know, this aggression will not stand, man!
posted by billysumday at 5:25 PM on January 24, 2006

Yikes, that's scary.
posted by kaemaril at 5:33 PM on January 24, 2006

Eeewwwww about sums that video up.
posted by Suparnova at 5:34 PM on January 24, 2006

aaaah! *pulls legs and feet up into chair*
posted by dabitch at 5:41 PM on January 24, 2006

That spider looks about as real as a $3 bill.
posted by driveler at 5:45 PM on January 24, 2006

Cripes! I want my mommy...
posted by Robot Johnny at 5:54 PM on January 24, 2006

Actually, uh, its really a scorpi[Whomp!BANG!]... NO CARRIER
posted by hal9k at 5:55 PM on January 24, 2006

Fuck!
posted by Pollomacho at 5:56 PM on January 24, 2006

I remember the first time I saw a camel spider (and this was just when I was getting into arachnology) and this spiderish thing whizzes around in the room, and this guy asked me to count the legs, and imagine my surprise when I saw that it had TEN legs.
posted by dhruva at 5:59 PM on January 24, 2006

Plus there's the whole thing about it being called a camel spider and all.
posted by Pollomacho at 6:03 PM on January 24, 2006

So now, instead of forwarding "neat" images/videos to all your friends, we're just gonna post it on mefi in a one-link fpp? Cause I've got this great chain letter I received last week.....
posted by nightchrome at 6:07 PM on January 24, 2006

The Online Source for Fact and Fiction on the Unique Camel Spider

Snopes

I've heard of these things from a few guys I know who spent time in Iraq...not exactly daddy longlegs. ::shivers::
posted by kosem at 6:13 PM on January 24, 2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_spider

The wikipedia article seems to be mainly concerned with telling us how they don't eat human flesh.

Sure, and they don't latch onto a human hosts brain and make them edit Wikipedia articles either.
posted by Artw at 6:15 PM on January 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

Jeepers.
posted by Gator at 6:16 PM on January 24, 2006

I was chatting with the spouse of a former colleague, a JTF2 type, and he told me that they used to trap these in Somalia and fight them against other insects/animals/etc... They'd drop both competitors in a bucket and watch the fun. One day, the camel spider starts running around the bucket and before you know it had run up the side and out onto the ground. He said he never saw a group of commandos turn into screaming girls faster than that.
posted by smcniven at 6:20 PM on January 24, 2006

bigger version here
posted by pyramid termite at 6:53 PM on January 24, 2006

::shudder::

I'm terrified of little teeny spiders, I think I'd go into immediate cardiac arrest if I ever saw one of those abominations.
posted by discokitty at 6:53 PM on January 24, 2006

Wow, nature is gross.
posted by Mercaptan at 6:54 PM on January 24, 2006

Wow, nature is gross.

Brings to mind the alligator-guzzling python which came to messy end this past October.
posted by ericb at 6:57 PM on January 24, 2006

that camelspiders.com is a private website, with lots of ads..
I'll wait till I see it on wikipedia.
posted by IronWolve at 7:00 PM on January 24, 2006

Here you go.
posted by kosem at 7:01 PM on January 24, 2006

Artw, that was truly classic.

*still laughing*
posted by Malor at 7:39 PM on January 24, 2006

I am resolutely not clicking a single damn link in this thread.

And I've turned images off, too. Sickos.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:46 PM on January 24, 2006

From Snopes: "Camel spiders can traverse desert sand at speeds up to 25 MPH, making screaming noises as they run. "

*draws all limbs away from floor and huddles in chair, clicks scroll button, shivering*

Further on in Snopes: "These claims are all false . ... they can move very quickly in comparison to other arthropods (a top speed of maybe 10 MPH), but nothing close 25 MPH; they make no noise ..."

So finding out that camel spiders are somewhat less speedy but absolutely silent is supposed to reassure me?

From Wikipedia: "and although they are fast on land compared to other invertebrates, the fastest can run perhaps 10 miles per hour, a common running speed for many humans."

Fuck it. I'm sleeping with the lights on tonight and locking all three cats in the room with me. They can't take on three cats at once, can they? (And if they can, please don't link to the video.)
posted by maudlin at 7:47 PM on January 24, 2006

"perhaps 10 miles per hour, a common running speed for many humans."

Oh, you can BELIEVE I can top that if I see one of those. oh yeah. I'd be capable of FLIGHT. eeeurgh.
posted by Zack_Replica at 7:54 PM on January 24, 2006

aw man.
i was eating.
posted by Doorstop at 8:14 PM on January 24, 2006

surprisingly, more info
posted by arialblack at 8:18 PM on January 24, 2006

I was eating lizard. I've completely gone off my lizard.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:25 PM on January 24, 2006

I found this (self-link) in my house. Looks fierce, it's harmless. A whip-scorpion, no tail, no sting. Rater inbetween a spider and a scorpion. I had to tease it to get it to open its claws. I captured it and set it free, outside my garden walls.

I confess, I freaked out when I saw it, just a few inches from my bare feet. I held it captive until identified as harmless. I've seen another in the house, since (maybe the same one?).
posted by Goofyy at 10:43 PM on January 24, 2006

Holy cow, Goofyy. That's a really neat lookin' arachnid. Can you give us some idea of scale?
posted by brundlefly at 11:09 PM on January 24, 2006

am I the only one who read the description, saw him diss cats in general, and thought, "ass"?
posted by paul_smatatoes at 11:29 PM on January 24, 2006

The beastie's body was about 2" long, 4" with legs. But it has super-long feelers that span at least 8". It moves side ways. I had picked up a piece of packing paper and there it was. The poor beast was doing its best to look small and unimportant. It huddled against the wall. I teased it (that's a broken antenna I'm using in the photo) to get it to open its claws. It is also very flat, they tend to live between rocks in the wild.

I had no clue what it was. My partner took a photo to work and found someone who could identify it. The photo on Wikipedia is a different species. At the time (Nov 2004), my photo was better than any I could find on the net. I have got to get a little ruler for such photos. I love shooting such things.
posted by Goofyy at 11:51 PM on January 24, 2006

Holy shit, that's a big beastie. I'd pay big money to see something like that.* I love me some arthropods.

paul_smatatoes: No, you're not alone.

*Too bad about not having big money to pay, no?
posted by brundlefly at 12:12 AM on January 25, 2006

Chuck Norris craps camel spiders after breakfast.

On the same note, I was chatting with a soon to be re-deployed SPC in Atlanta and she was bitten by some sort of nasty critter in Iraq on her previous deployment. She thought it was a baby camel spider. She had the scars to prove it.

Same critter?
posted by ryoshu at 1:10 AM on January 25, 2006

Jesus. (And it's not a spider! There, I said it.)
posted by OmieWise at 6:40 AM on January 25, 2006

This is exactly what metafilter should be all about. Videos of greusome animal attacks.
posted by mert at 7:50 AM on January 25, 2006

I was afraid I'd go to my grave never having seen anything uglier than a potato bug. Thank you, internet!
posted by Gamblor at 8:37 AM on January 25, 2006

wow, goofy, that is neat and pretty freaky.
The scariest thing ever to crawl around my house was this speedy guy:

(from the supah site whatsthatbug)
I was typing to friends , saw it and typed aaah! HOLY SHIT to my mates, by the time I looked up again the bugger was gone. Brrr!
posted by dabitch at 9:24 AM on January 25, 2006

We found some sort of centipede thing (similar) in the bath tub one night. I took a movie. It was trying to climb the side, and couldn't get traction. This resulted in a centipede, running in place. It was about 10cm long. I sent it outside.

What I like best down here are the locusts. Huge beasts, some at least 15cm long. First time we saw one, it was motionless. We thought it was a lost toy, until it moved. Recently I got some great shots of one with bright green markings, looked totally plastic. And the other day I found a weird cricket-looking beast, dead in the pool. Odd thing was a spike sticking out its back end about 7mm long, looking like it should sting. Africa has lots of surprises!

I take photos of such things whenever I can. I have to put up a gallery of the best of them. My newest camera does quite a nice job on macros (Canon A620). Not sure which camera was used on the whip scorpion, probably the 10D. Funny enough, the A620 has a few extra rows of pixels.
posted by Goofyy at 10:07 AM on January 25, 2006

The contestants on "Fear Factor" had to eat camel spiders on last week's episode.

The eighth was no easier to watch than the first.
posted by pudders at 11:42 AM on January 25, 2006

Goofyy, did the cricket "spike" look anything like this?
posted by jenovus at 12:40 PM on January 25, 2006

Holy crap.

maudlin - I'm dying' over here. The cats are looking at me sideways.
posted by deborah at 12:54 PM on January 25, 2006

The prehistoric megarachne at Cambridge, said to be the largest spider in the world, is apparently not even a spider at all.

I have a picture of my hand next to it somewhere. It's body alone is maybe 2-3 times the size of my hand. Add the legs and it's scary as hell.
posted by Elagabalus at 2:14 PM on January 25, 2006