Tanzanian whip spider
Damon variegatus
— Where the name comes from
Amblypygi means “blunt-tailed”, from amblýs, blunt, and pygḗ, the rear: the name was coined to distinguish them from the whip scorpions, their cousins, which do have a whip-like tail. It is a name made by subtraction — they are called this for something they lack. Damon recalls the friend of Pythias, the pair from the Greek legend of friendship, and variegatus the pattern of the body.
— Facts
- Group
- Arachnids · Arachnida
- Order
- Whip spiders
- Habitat
- Caves, cavities and bark in tropical and subtropical regions
- Range
- Eastern and southern Africa
- Size
- Body 2–4 cm; leg span up to 25 cm
- Diet
- Crickets, cockroaches, moths, small vertebrates
- Lifespan
- 5–10 years
— Characteristics
- 01
The first pair of legs does not walk: it is a pair of very long feelers.
- 02
It has neither venom nor silk, and is entirely harmless to humans.
- 03
It walks sideways, like a crab, with its legs arched.
— What sets it apart
It walks on six legs and uses the other two as a blind man’s canes: the first pair, extremely slender and up to three times the body length, is covered in thousands of receptors and swept ahead to feel, identify and navigate. Experiments in the caves of Costa Rica showed that whip spiders find their way back to their own refuge after being moved tens of metres, and lose the ability if those feelers are removed: they navigate by touch and smell, in places where sight is no use. They are among the few arachnids in which the mother tends her young, which ride on her back for weeks.
