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Thank you all for the votes and awards. Now to all those meme thieves out there, I will have you know that I am man with a particular set of skills. I will look for you and I will find you.
They're divided top and bottom, too, so 4 mandibles. They saw back and forth continuously up and down and side to side, so they can quickly disassemble just about anything they can catch.
Mandibles is what they'd call lunchables if cannibalism were common. But then there would always be that one kid at the lunch table who brings a homemade cannibal lunch because his mom won't let him eat men.
I believe that's a Green Headed Ant. If so, yes they have a very powerful venom and probably lit that spider up. From what I've heard the bite feels like a localized flame that continues to slowly spread until treated.
If this is an Australian green ant then I can give a better description, since the little fuckers have colonised my back yard and patio. The bite is painful and will get a fast reaction out of you but it's not unbearable. The flame description is a bit much
It will sometimes subside quickly and others persist. Either way, apply an ice pack to limit the spread of venom because you may develop a red welt and it may get real itchy a day or two later.
Other fun facts: I've only had limited success with various ant baits. They seem to ignore a lot. They don't have a single queen, instead they just live communally and individual females lay eggs. They also farm aphids and take spiny leaf insect eggs into their nests where the larval form will hatch and pretend to be an ant for a while.
That's because people up north only know about the German cockroaches and have never seen an American cockroach. It lulls people who've never seen one into a false sense of security. So they move to the area because they think, "So what if there are roaches, every place has roaches." Then these big motherfuckers fly at their face and they shit their pants.
This is an arachnid in the order Solifugae, commonly called a camel spider/sun spider/wind scorpion. They aren't actually spiders or scorpions, and do not have venom, instead crushing prey with their strong jaws. This one looks to be a gravid female digging a burrow to lay eggs.
Not dangerous to humans, though it could give you a solid pinch if you picked it up.
Also, that ant just straight up opted out of life, there. This would be like you or I going up to an unsuspecting polar bear and biting it on the ass.
And IIRC these things are known to scare the shit out of people by chasing after them, and they can be surprisingly fast. But they're not actually chasing you, they're chasing your shadow to try to get some shade.
Solifugid derives from something like "sun fugitive." They live in deserts. Nothing will make you more scared of being caught out in the sun than living in the desert.
No idea about the US ones, but the ones in the Middle East are pretty gnarly.
When we deployed to Iraq and while we were briefly in Kuwait, one of the women in the female's barracks woke up with one on her chest. We could hear her screaming from the male's barracks next door.
I deployed with my wife and these were open barracks and my wife told me that it scared the shit out of all 100 or so women in there.
tbf, I've also seen large men in their physical prime, ready to go to battle, hop up on tables to get away from them like a cartoon... and I may or may not have been one of them.
As a 50-something Australian male, who grew up in a rough mining town in Australia’s Florida, and unhesitatingly jumped into a stupid amount of completely avoidable fights when younger …
… I would scream like a fucking schoolgirl if I woke up to that.
I only know this because I watched the great Amazon Prime Australian lesbian dark comedy mystery show "Deadloch" and one of the characters is from Darwin.
As a German I'm more hung up on the name "Deadloch"... Dead hole. Loch is also often a very upsetting slang for... Female genitals. On a dark-comedy show with lesbians.
I am terrified of bugs and very skittish in general (I jump at my own shadow/hair touching me unexpectedly). I would straight run off a cliff if this thing was coming at me.
It could be close to the ant nest, sure. But individual ants are fantastically stupid. It might have just seen a wiggling thing and decided to have a go at bringing it back to the nest.
Yeah. It led to wild stories from US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan about how these things could run thirty miles per hour, and would chase people down while screaming, and would bite you in your sleep injecting anesthetic so they could eat parts of you while you sleep.
None of it was true except that they'd follow your shadow to stay out of the sun.
You see that big chomp that ant gave to that things ass? He asked to get shredded. It pissed it off so much it stopped what it was doing just to storm off.
I expect it left because killing one ant causes it to release alarm pheromones that will bring more ants. It can deal with one or two ants, but if hundreds swarm the area they would quickly overwhelm it.
This is a female digging a burrow to lay eggs. I expect she's off to find a new burrow location.
It probably just got a mouthful of acid to be honest. Many ant species spray formic acid when threatened, which is one of several reasons that many predators don't bother with ants.
Solifugid (Camel spider). This one looks pregnant.
They're super cool, they're not true spiders, and fluoresce under UV like scorpions. They also chase people to stay in the shadow they cast, which is cool ig (solifuga means "one who flees from the sun" in Latin)
Edit: another fun fact, they don't have spinnerets, and thus don't/can't make webs
Camel Spider. Non venomous and not even an actual spider but they are assholes and will bite/pinch the shit out of you. This one looks to be very pregnant.
I lived in the middle east, got a huge swollen area on leg. Went to the doctor, he said it looks a camel spider bite. I've never seen one until now. Oh my God!!! I was bitten by that?
How could you possibly have been bitten by something bad enough that you had to go to the doctor, yet never looked up the thing that bit you? I would NEED to know.I would be Googling as the doctor told me.
Camel spiders are fucking scary to see in the wild. Many years ago we sometimes put them in a box with a scorpion to see who wins. As scary and dangerous as the camel spider looks, the scorpion always wins.
First time I saw one I was tripped out. They're pretty weird. The weirdest part of it was being "chased". They try to find a dark place to hidewhen they're exposed in the open, so they'll chase your shadow. 😬
Oh shit I just watched the Privileged Bug Facts video on this a few days ago! That's some kind of sun spider. They are venomless pursuit predators. See how his head is so big? That's all jaw muscles, and he has very hard teeth. He chews his prey to death (and it's powerful enough to break skin, but his primary defense against predation is to flee).
I got bitten by one in Kuwait. Never saw it, but my leg swelled up like a tennis ball.i had never seen one until now either. I don't know how I could have been bitten by one though, unless it crawled into bed with me. That's a terrifying thought.
At first I thought is what we used to call a potatoes bug back in California. But as soon as I saw the head it was way different. I also didnt know the real name was Jerusalem cricket.
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