This article only has the "spider" diagram above.
I don't know if you have seen the photo like the above?
It is neither PS nor stills. The animal in this photo is real, its ferocity is indeed not low, and it will run after people. The only good thing is that the scale of this graph is wrong.
This animal is called a sun-sheltering spider and academically belongs to Solifugae.
Sun-sheltering spiders have "spiders" in their name but are not spiders, they belong to the arthropod phylum Arachnids, and spiders and scorpions belong to a large family. There are about a thousand species of sun-sheltering spiders in the world, which mainly live in desert areas, and are also found in Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia on the mainland, and only Australia and South America in the world do not find sun-sheltering spiders.
Although there are early records of sun-sheltering spiders in the literature, and in the first half of the 20th century, British researchers also studied Iraq's sun-sheltering spiders, but the general public knew about it 20 years ago.
In 2003, the well-known U.S.-Iraq war broke out in the Middle East, and a large number of American soldiers poured into the desert to fight. Everyone found this "face holding worm" with "ten legs" that chases people in the desert, so they posed for that picture. The US "National Geographic" magazine introduced that due to the US-Iraq war, the sun-sheltering spider has become a net celebrity.
These photos use the illusion of depth of sight to make sun-sheltering spiders look particularly large, but in fact, they are only a dozen centimeters in size and cannot be fried in a pot.
Of course, compared with ordinary arachnids, sun-sheltering spiders are indeed more "Godzilla", and they are furry and look fierce. On the contrary, they are more ferocious than we think.
A 2014 study showed that sun-sheltering spiders can eat termites, beetles and other small animals, among which ants are the most favorite.
However, this is mainly because they can only encounter these animals in the desert. Paula Cushing, a biologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, says that in fact, sun-sheltering spiders bite as long as they bite, and some smaller vertebrates, such as lizards, mice and birds, also eat. So it's mainly force values that limit their recipes, not evolutionary branches.
Speaking of which, I have to mention the power of this product. The force value of the sun-sheltered spider can be summarized by the "carbon-based high-speed agitator", because it is mainly composed of two parts: "high-speed" and "stirring".
Most of the sun-sheltering spiders are not poisonous, and they mainly rely on brute force to walk in rivers and lakes. Their chelicula, or jaws, are particularly large, accounting for one-third of their body length, and they are powerful thieves, which are a bully in the arachnid family. Sun-sheltering spiders have eight legs, but their "big mouth" makes them look like they have 10 legs, so they are particularly deterrent.
Sunshelter spiders' pincer spouts can easily crush their food and then churn. They then inject digestive juices into their prey, turning the food into gravy before eating, similar to many arachnids. Cushing says arachnids generally have a habit of hoarding, so they generally don't kill and eat on the spot, and the same may be true for sun-avoiding spiders.
However, what is even more terrifying is that their "big mouths" are not only used to "stir" and kill prey, but also for breeding.
The mating method of sun-sheltering spiders is also quite painful.
After the male sun-sheltering spider touched the female, for reasons that researchers are very interested in but still unknown, the female is as if she has been "pointed" and cannot move. At this time, the male will fiercely tear the female reproductive tract with a pincer mouth, as if treating the female as a prey.
After the male has opened the female's reproductive tract, the sperm bag is stuffed in, and then a few more bites are required. The researchers believe that this may be to unpack the fine bag.
Now no one knows why their baby-making process is directly "caesarean section", and no one knows why females allow this execution-style reproduction process.
The second component of the Sun-Sheltering Spider's strength value is speed. They are long-distance runners whose endurance can even exceed the human average.
Cushing said that most arachnids are not suitable for long-distance running, but sun-sheltering spiders can continue to move and chase prey. Due to heavy exercise, they also have a high metabolic rate and need to eat a lot. Cushing remembers chasing sun-sheltered spiders for two hours in Israel's Negev Desert before giving up.
Jack Brookhart, another biologist at the Denver Museum of Natural Science, also has experience running long distances with sun-sheltering spiders, pointing out that sun-sheltering spiders can reach speeds of up to 16 kilometers per hour, killing while running, as long as they can bite.
Fortunately, these ferocious predators are less visible during the day, as they are nocturnal and particularly hate the sun.
However, once you see them during the day, it's best to be ready to run. Because when they are exposed to the sun, they will frantically find shade to hide, which is the origin of their scientific name.
In order to avoid the sun, the sun-sheltering spider will chase the shadow of the animal, and the shadow cast by camels and American soldiers is also the object of the sun-sheltering spider's chase, which makes them look as if they are hunting large animals. This misunderstanding is also a kind of origin of its common name camel spider.
However, like the Iraqis, although they cannot beat American soldiers, they can bite a few bites of demonstrations, and then be caught to take pictures to create a shadow for people around the world.
You're not chasing shadows, you're "full" shadows.
Reprinted from: Bringing Science Home
Written by: Seven Lords
Editor-in-charge: Gollum