The Oregon sun spider

Maggie Saslow is one of those people who wants to know. She is curious about everything that sneaks, crawls, fly, jumps, slithers, runs, hops and otherwise is associated with her little plot on planet Earth.

Her emails are always filled with things to think about, things that need names. She sent me a photo last week that really made my day titled, "Translucent amber legs, striped abdomen ?-inch long, xoxs, Maggie."

I had a hunch solpugids were here, as I've seen them out on the Great Sandy Desert, around Fort Rock, and what was once the lovely Brothers Oasis rest stop. (It's no longer an "oasis," just an ordinary highway potty-stop with no access to water.)

Of all the wild things that scamper around under our feet, solpugids are perhaps the most misunderstood, and feared. Maybe it's because they're so fast.

And then there's that goofy email going around. About three years ago, photos started circulating of military personnel holding what were called "camel spiders," with associated wild stories how they are half the size of a man, could bite your head off, give you horrifying wounds, and otherwise are the terror of the earth. Not so... They are just very large sun spiders.

Solpugids.

Here's the scoop on the order Solifugae, in which sun spiders, wind scorpions, etc. are found. Yes, they are related to spiders; yes, they can attain three to five inches in the Southwest and South America. Yes, they can attain about eight inches in the Middle East. Yes, they run like greased lightning, and yes, they scare the living daylights out of just about anyone who sees them.

Not Maggie; she was just curious.

They look like a scorpion, but are not in that order - no "stinger" or grasping pincers. Those formidable "jaws" are really modified chelicera, the instruments that hold the fangs of spiders. Sun spider jaws oscillate, and are so powerful they tear their victims apart quickly.

Also like spiders, solpugids coat their food with digestive enzymes and suck it in. However, there is NO VENOM IN THEM. If you're "bitten" by a sun spider (and they can't "sting" you) the only thing that may happen is it may spill some digestive enzymes on the wound, or you could get a secondary infection from scratching it.

If you find a sun spider in your home, consider yourself lucky. They eat things you don't want in your home, like ants; black widow spiders; bed bugs; and moth larvae that get at your clothing. They will not eat you, but rather get as far away from you as possible.

Now, look at the photo to the right. It appears the creature has too many legs for a spider, five on each side, instead of the customary four. Surprise! The first pair are not legs, but pedipalps, sensory organs, sometimes use to catch their prey. Spiders have them and they're used about the same way, only in males they're used for mating as well.

Solpugids are very territorial and do not enjoy one another's company, except during mating time - and I won't even get started in that area. The mating behavior of our beautiful little spotted skunk is stinky; the mating behavior of sun spiders - from the human standpoint - is abominable.

If you place two sun spiders in a jar, and drop it off at the library for me it may not work out as we intended. By the time we get together there will probably be only one and lot of wreckage scattered about; legs, jaws and a lot of squishy stuff.

Now, if you want to go out searching for Sisters Country solpugids, first you have to get out of the forest and head for juniper and sagebrush. Don't look underfoot, but way out ahead of you.

Wind scorpions are fast, and if you go looking under rocks, boards, old pieces of juniper, chunks of sagebrush and the like, PLEASE, after you've turned over all that debris and rocks, turn it back over - in most cases there are homes for other animals under the stuff.