Pallipes Windscorpion

• Its chelicerae are, proportionally, among the most powerful mouthparts in the animal kingdom, and work as two independent vertical shears.
• It has no venom glands whatsoever, despite the reputation for lethality that trails the group.
• Its first pair of legs does not walk: it uses them as sense organs, feeling the ground like a pair of antennae.
• It is neither a spider nor a scorpion: the solifuges are an order of arachnids in their own right, with no venom and no silk, and among the least studied in existence.
• It has the largest jaws relative to body size of any arachnid: enormous chelicerae shaped like double pincers that take up nearly a third of its length, with which it literally grinds up its prey.
• It has no venom glands. It kills by sheer mechanical force.
• It walks on six legs: the front pair of appendages, the sensory pedipalps, are carried raised and end in adhesive organs with which it snatches prey in mid-air.
• It is extremely fast, and its reputation for chasing people is a misunderstanding: it is actually seeking shade, and since the nearest shade is usually the observer's shadow, it looks as if it is giving chase.
• Its popular English names, camel spider and wind scorpion, describe neither of those things.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (arachnid)

Habitat & environment

Arid and semi-arid ground of western North America

Sources consulted: Punzo, The Biology of Camel-Spiders; Universidad de Florida, Featured Creatures; Bird et al., revisiones de Solifugae