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 Member
Posts: 44
Location: Southeast | Photo from our troops in Baghdad of a GI holding two spiders with pliers.
One soldier was bitten by a camel spider which was hiding in his sleeping bag. I thought you'd like to see what a camel spider looks like. It'll give you a better idea of one of the environmental hazards our troops face on a daily basis.
photo is a close-up so they look even larger.
Not a "doctored" photo. These spiders are real!
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 Shadow's Soul 
Posts: 3188
  
Location: oklahoma | Where is the photo? |
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Member
Posts: 44
Location: Southeast | Don't know what happened. I will try it again. |
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 Ms Bling Bling Sleeze Kitty
Posts: 20904
 
Location: LouLouVille, OK | nasty |
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 PBR Queen
Posts: 7763
Location: Sams Valley,OR | Oh My gosh That thing gives me the willies! |
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Member
Posts: 44
Location: Southeast | From What I have heard th will bite the camel which will then numb the area. They then proceed to eat the flesh! YUCK |
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  Golden Heart
Posts: 5662
Location: SD | It looks like that nasty thing has more than 8 legs. Yuck!! |
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 Happy Go Lucky
Location: Illinois | Gawllleee! That's an extremely large spider! Now, if I can just sleep tonight after seeing this picture! Eeewwww! |
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| I'm not even going to look. lololol cantrnr |
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 You just got to get mean and mean it.
Location: Arkansas | Boy, I bet they make a splat when you stomp on them! |
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Happy Go Lucky
Location: Illinois | If I couldn't hire someone else to stomp on it, I'd be running from it! |
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Blessed
Location: Here | Originally written by Ridafatappy on 2004-04-13 9:14 PM
If I couldn't hire someone else to stomp on it, I'd be running from it! Maybe that is what those Hummers are good for!!!! RUN OVER THEM THANGS!!! |
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 Nosey!
Posts: 6621
Location: Oregon | son of a ...... Is all I could think!!!! Are there 2? |
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 Regular
Posts: 97
Location: Texas Gulf Coast | Are they fighting or mating? Hard to tell.... |
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 Bling Queen
Posts: 8861
Location: No Clue | Originally written by Lobo on 2004-04-13 9:11 PM
Boy, I bet they make a splat when you stomp on them!  EEEEEEWWWWWW
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Expert
Posts: 1202
| --anyone know how venemous they are??? that poor troop--i probably would have died of a heart attack!!! |
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 Fuzzy Navel
Posts: 5772
Location: Cleveland, GA |  i would hate to have to splat one of those things... yuck! |
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 Twin Sister to Queen Boobie
Posts: 13315
Location: East Tennessee but who knows?! | no wonder those people are so mean over there! They have to be to live with those things! ugh! |
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Nosey!
Posts: 6621
Location: Oregon | I have shown everyone in the office ..... YUCK!!!nasty, raunch, eeeewwwww |
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 Can Do It
Posts: 2738
Location: Hockley, Texas | OMG! Those things are HUGE! |
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Veteran
Posts: 255
Location: Kentucky | It wouldn't have to bite me. I would simply die of fright! Nasty!!! |
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Veteran
Posts: 186
Location: Washington State | I would sure love to see my cat try and go for one of those. I bet he wouldn't think he was so tough after all. |
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 On The Brink
Posts: 7945
Location: Teetering on the edge of certain regressions | Yikes! I'm thinking a BIG can of Raid. That or a sledge hammer. At least you could see them coming. |
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Sideways Riding Expert
Posts: 11371
Location: ND--it snows, it floods, it snows, it floods | YUCK!!!!! I hate spiders anyways (yep, big wuss when it comes to them) I'd be armed with a flame thrower to combat them ugly things. |
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 Color My World
Posts: 4940
Location: My perfect world bubble | I did a search for camel spiders on the internet and found this... thought it was interesting... talks about this photo and email... http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp |
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Veteran
Posts: 186
Location: Washington State | This is the truth about these spiders.Urban legends about the camel spider (properly termed a solpugid or solifugid) are as old as the proverbial hills, but they made a huge resurgence when vectored by American troops in Kuwait during Desert Storm. They're not quite as big as your hand (unless you're a five-year-old), and very shy and secretive. They do like to hide in the shadows, and they do run very, very quickly for a critter (they can reach about 10 MPH, the fastest known non-flying arthropod). They make no noise whatsoever, they have no venom whatsoever, and they do not eat flesh--they eat small desert arthropods like crickets and pillbugs. The rumors of their attacking camels, or crawling onto sleeping GIs' faces, apparently stem from one of two things, both of which may be true to some extent: (1) they may use hair to line their burrow when they are about to lay a batch of eggs, said hair being clipped from dead camels or other dead mammals (and a sleeping GI is not much different), and/or (2) dead camels are covered with flies, and crawling over a camel corpse may make for a convenient way to get a good meal of flies.
We have camel spiders in the sandy parts of the southwest U.S. and Mexico (in Mexico they are called matevenados), considerably smaller than the Middle Eastern types, but of the same shy, unassuming habits. Completely harmless and beneficial critters, like the desert equivalent of a praying mantis.
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RE: OT: Check this out!