The Sun Avoidant Spider is a common name for heliotropic animals, and the Latin name of the sun avoidant order solifigue means "escape from the sun", derived from the Latin words sol (sun) and fugere (escape). The order has 12 families, 153 genera, and more than 1,000 species. With the exception of Antarctica and Australia, all deserts and semi-arid grasslands are found, and sometimes forests are found. The first scientific description of the species was completed in 1772 by the German-Russian naturalist Peter Pallas.
Shaped like a spider rather than a spider
Sun avoidance spiders are often referred to as camel spiders, false spiders, Roman spiders, sun spiders, wind scorpions, etc., but it is not a spider. Both sun-avoiding spiders and spiders belong to the arachnid order, with spiders belonging to the order araneae and sun-avoiding spiders belonging to solifugae, which are different. In addition, the body structure of the sun spider is also different from most spiders, and its mouth has two pairs of claws, which are tools used to "bite", unlike the poisonous fangs that most spiders use to "bite".
The clawed limbs of spiders
The clawed limbs of the sun-avoiding spider
Between the cephalothorax and the abdomen, there is no clearly visible body segment like a "real spider", and the abdomen is also non-woven. The spider's abdomen requires a lot of mobility during movement, while the sun-avoidance spider does not. It is a more active and ferocious predator than most spiders.
Habits of life
In the harsh natural conditions of the Gurbantunggut Desert, only strong species can survive, and the sun spider is one of the best.
The sun-avoiding spider moves at speeds of up to 14-16 km / h, so sometimes it is also known as the wind scorpion. It mostly hunts at night, hiding during the day in abandoned gerbil burrows or between rock crevices. It is a natural predator, with intimidating tentacles and swift movements creating a frightening effect.
When preying on locusts and beetles, the adsorber at the end of the tentacles can easily lock on to the prey and quickly retract. The huge clawed canine teeth staggered firmly clamped on the prey and began to eat, while the victim was still alive, and the prey was finally crushed into a digestible paste. Predators are crude, cruel and efficient. When digging a cave, its claws can more easily pry the soil, quickly pushing out sand that weighs dozens of times its own weight.
The Sun Spider is extremely aggressive and fearless, and any living creature that encounters it can be attacked. When in danger, the spider will lift its body, open its tentacles to point at the enemy, and make a harsh hissing sound to scare the enemy away. It is neither afraid of other animals nor of humans.
In terms of eating habits, the spider avoids the sun like a hungry ghost reincarnated, greedy and overeating. Spiders, insects, lizards, small mammals, and even dead birds can become its food. It will never miss any opportunity to eat, even if you are not hungry. It is very clear that harsh environmental food is not easy to come by. For some reason, the sun-sheltering spider sometimes attacks the ant nest, only tearing the ant in half left and right, and finally piling it up.
Some scholars believe that it kills ants in order to preserve them for later consumption. But a 2014 zoologist Reddick's article on the eclipse of sun-avoiding spiders, combined with his own findings, suggested that sun-avoiding spiders were not particularly fond of eating ants. Another explanation for this behavior could be that it tries to clear ant nests and find a good place to hide from the hot desert sun. In fact, the reason for this is still a mystery, and many sun avoidance spiders have died from colony attacks because of this behavior.
When the spider molts, it will dig a very shallow pit similar to the pupal chamber of insects and molt inside. Molting maintains a twisted posture for a month, like an insect pupal, in this state you touch it, it will only writhe.
Reproduction and longevity
Mating usually occurs at night. Females emit a special odor to attract males. The mating process takes only 2 to 4 minutes. After mating, the male will flee quickly, because the female is extremely aggressive and will even eat the male.
30 to 200 eggs can be laid at a time, and after 2-3 weeks, the larvae break out of their shells. There is no information on the life expectancy of the sun-avoiding spider.
Many times the sun avoidance spider can be said to be a fearless warrior, neither huge in size nor poisonous glands, but dare to challenge enemies several times larger than themselves. Tough, it's not at the top of the food chain. Fecal analysis showed that birds of prey, small mammals, and reptiles would prey on sun-avoiding spiders.
dinorhax rostrumpsittaci
Of course, not all the sun-avoiding spiders in this family are brave and fierce, such as the dinorhax rostrumpsittaci who live in the rainforest. It will only dig holes, and then claws will block the door and hunt small insects passing by. Not safarid like its desert relatives.
Are sun-avoiding spiders poisonous?
For a long time, people have mistakenly believed that it is highly toxic and very dangerous out of fear of its appearance. But in fact, it has no toxic glands, and all parts of the body are not poisonous.
Only a 1978 study reported that rhagodes nigrocinctus found in India was a toxic gland capable of killing mice with venom. However, there are no supporting studies to confirm this claim. Even the original recorder denied that the sun-averse spider would kill its prey with poison.
But its claws can easily bite through the skin. Because there are food debris left behind when eating on the claw limbs, it is easy to cause inflammation after bites.
Strange rumors of chaos
There are many appalling rumors around the world about the sun-avoiding spider, and its size, speed, behavior, and lethality are grossly exaggerated. There are even false claims, such as that in South Africa it is called a barber, because it is believed that it will be brought back to decorate the nest with strong claws when people and animals are asleep. Sometimes the death of pets and domestic animals is also blamed on the sun-avoiding spider. As for the so-called bite poisoning records, in the end, it was also found that it was not the work of the sun avoidant spider.
A description of the characteristics
The body structure of the sun-avoiding spider is very primitive, and some even call it an evolutionary failure, but its respiratory system is the most advanced of the arachnids. The small body length of the sun-avoiding spider is only a few millimeters to a few centimeters, and the larger ones can reach 12 to 15 centimeters including the legs. In fact, the length of different types of legs varies greatly, so the data obtained is often misleading, and more accurate measurements mainly refer to body length. Most of the sun avoidance spiders are close to 5 cm long when they are adults.
Males are usually smaller than females, but have relatively long legs. It seems that the sun-avoidance spider has five pairs of feet, but in fact only the last four pairs are "real" feet. Each true foot consists of seven parts (as shown in the figure below).
The first pair of feet of the sun-avoiding spider, which is actually a tentacle, consists of 5 parts. It resembles the insect's antennae as a sensory organ and can be used to help eat, fight, mate, etc., but does not participate in walking. The ends of the tentacles have glabrous adsorption organs that can trap prey with the help of pressure, and some of the tentacles can be used for climbing.
The first pair of true feet is very small and thin, which has a large sensory effect on the foot and serves as a supplement to the last three pairs of feet. In most cases, it uses only the last three pairs of legs to walk. Underneath the last pair of legs, there are racket-like sensory organs that can detect vibrations in the soil, as well as threats and potential prey or mates.
Author: Yazi
Editor:Liu Xinhua
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