Camel Spiders spider bite

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Aug 22, 2005
During 1966 / 1967 I was stationed in Aden and had cause to go up to Habilayn on the Yemen border. I came across a camel spider one evening in the arms store where I was working. I killed it and then told one of our medics who disected them for a hobby. When he saw the state of the spider he said it was no good, but let him know when the other one showed up. He told me that they go around in twos or threes. A very sobering thought. The very next day in the same building a spider ran over my mates foot. I cannot repeat what he said. After some grief we did with the aid of the medic catch this one. The are fast, strong and can jump like hell!!!
No further spiders were found in our building but the same week anotherpair was found in the serjeant's mess tent. They are not the sort of creature that anyone would want to share a room with. Once seen, definately not forgotten.
Tony Baker
Ex REME

Aug 19th, 2005
I thought I would add a little story for the site if accepted. Back in 1990 we came across a strange looking creature one night. We took it inside, put in a coffee can and commenced on feeding it. It went through 4 black widow spiders, a cricket and a wolf spider (along with its babies) and was still hungry. It took some research to discover what in the world what this strange thing was, (seeing how there was not a wonderful internet to use), but low and behold we came up with the identity. A "Wind Scorpion" or nicknamed camel spider. This wasnt in the middle east somewhere either. It was in good old southern California at night on the flight line on Marine Corps Air Station Tustin. They can be seen all across the desert here in the states, though they dont reach much larger that a few inches at the biggest. I have had one of Marines find one just nonchelantly crawling up her coveralls and not giving a hoot to the hand swatting away. Here or the middle east, they are an aggressive creature and not one to let get a bit into you. Thought I would share, John D.

Aug 17th,2005
During desert shield I was assigned to the 2nd COSCOM in Saudi Arabia after we had captured a few and like any bored soldier we pitted our spider versus pet spiders from other units. (Cruel but interesting) Our Spider was small and rather hungry; he remained undefeated for about three weeks until our bloated bug was eaten by a smaller and faster spider.

SPC. T. Bourland

Aug 8, 2005
Hi Spiderman!,

I just wanted to drop you a line. I live in California. We bought a new house and for the past year and a half have been in full battle over a Camel Spider invasion. I contacted a local pest control company and they did not believe me. They do now, after several visits trying to kill these things we both agreed that we part our separate ways. I turned to Noble Way pest control and spoke to the owner. He was pretty confident that he could take care of it. You see, the layer of pesticide they lay down only sickens the vermin for about a day then they are up and running again. We have seen ones 3 inches long and down to only a half a centimeter (baby). It has been over a year and again they have bombed our home twice, multiple visits and such. Anyway, I am not seeing them as much (was 3 a day down to 1 a week). I have witnessed them attack prey outside and then sit and eat them. I put several in a jar and watch them attack each other. They area smart and can follow you as you move. In a jar they will Lunge at your fingers. They are vicious. I have had several friends come over just to see them. The funny thing is that no other house is affected and the pest control persons have never seen them. I have sent live specimens in jars with Noble way and the other pest guys for testing. In a nutshell I am actually proud to say I have them. I have grown accustom to lifting my feet as one runs by. My kids do the same. The biggest one we have ever seen was 3 inches long and we believe was a female ready to deliver. We watched in awe as she disappeared under a base board. I think that was our undoing. Here is a current picture of what we call a ‘Small’ one. It has been dead for a couple weeks so it has dried and shrunk. It is a wimpy example. Anyway, if you have any questions let me know

The Hodgsons
From Camelspiders.net ...Thank you, thank you for the story and picture.

July 31, 2005
I just found this site this morning while looking for a picture someone said
they saw of a 4-5ft camel spider a soldier was holding up. I'm pretty sure
it's the picture with the 2 normal sized spiders someone is holding up.
Anyway, here's a story.

I'm currently in Iraq and sometimes while on guard duty I see these things.
A few nights ago four of us were on duty at a little wooden shack. 2 of us
were sitting outside in chairs and the other 2 were inside. We'd already
seen about 4 fairly small spiders that night so we were glancing around
quite a bit. Suddenly there came this scream from inside, "IT'S RIGHT BY
YOUR HEAD!!!". Both of them jumped for the door at once at which point she
shoved (still screaming) the other guy (who hadn't actually seen the spider)
into the wall and flew outside. Once he was out of the way the 3rd guy and
I poked our heads inside to see this "monster" spider. There on the wall
was the smallest baby camel spider I've seen yet. about the size of a
nickel.

While 3 of us were doubled over laughing all she could say was, "It looked
alot bigger than that when I saw it"

-Sgt Schwarz

Mark, July 5, 2005
Yes, I had my first encounter with the infamous (meaning "more than famous"), Camel Spider. I had taken trash to the big dumpster and while throwing everything in I got oil on my hands, but I saw a clean one in the dumpster and reached in and grabbed it. As I stood up I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and let me tell you, it was fast. I jumped back and it raced right under me on the rim of the dumpster, about chest high. When I moved back it jumped (it did not fall!), it jumped towards me, off the dumpster. Luckily, it missed me or I'd have been run out of the army for screaming like a little girl. It ran under the hummvee and I found myself saying to myself "self, 120 is not really that hot, a nice walk (or run) back to the motorpool sounds pretty good". But I decided to try to get a picture of it for everyone and I moved the hummvee forward and tried to find it on the ground, but it had vanished (because thats what spiders do, they know they can scare you more if they pull the "now you see me, now you don't" trick). Now, who says I don't love you guys. I was prepared to face a huge, mutant spider, with nothing between us but a camera, for YOU!! Insurgents are one thing, just as long as the president promises never to send us into caves to destroy the camel spider population. I don't think I'd ever recover from that. I hope you all enjoyed my story, just a little entertainmen at my expense, I can deal with that. So next time you see a spider in your house, don't freak out, I promise you it won't be the size of a rat and look like the thing from Alien that attatches itself to your face (and that's the best I can honestly describe it).

Ok I dont know if my story is so intersting but here goes.
My husband and I live in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. Our garden is right off of our kitchen so we are used to getting our share of strange creatures come in the house or in the garden; various beetles, very large cockroaches, lizzards and very small terantula looking spiders. But I never in my life saw one of these, until last Friday night. My huband and I were eating dinner and out of the corner of his eye my husband saw something and looked at the floor. We both saw what I now think is a Camel Spider. About the size of the palm of a mans hand in length. I coulnt get such a good look at its legs, because he was so fast, but what I remember is the pincer on the mouth, it was dark brown and hairy, with a large fat body. Anyway we thought at first it was a millepede, but upon sweeping it out (not back to the garden) it definitely was not that! I thought a scorpion but it had not a scorpion tail. Anyway we were pretty frightened (still get goosebumps) by this mysterious creature, until thank you for clearing up the mystery! I just hope we dont have any return visits :)
Bina, Israel

While working for Al Salam Aircraft company in Riyadh, 2002- 2003 (I left after the Jadawel Compound bombing) we had many run ins with camel spiders in the hanger areas and out in the aircraft run areas. I admit that my first encounter with one scared the hell out of me but it got to be routine. Some were relatively small, others fairly large, all were aggressive like nothing I have ever seen. They would come in, mostly on night shift, walking right up the middle of the hanger. We couldn't take a broom, or anything else, and try to push them out as they would turn aggressive and attack whatever we would use so we finally started keeping coffee cans, and other containers, around and just trapped them and took them out to the fence line and let them go. Of course some did not want to be trapped and we would then introduce them to the "Smash factor" but what a mess that made.

Luckily we had no one bitten, American or Saudi, but there were the usual close calls since we had to start checking everything we opened, carefully, for any intruders. I hope I never run into one of those nasty little buggers again. They must be what B sci-fi movie producers had in mind when they were making all those movies in the 50's.

This next story comes to us from a former British soldier.

Dear Sir,
It is with extreme interest that I read your website and its contents. Although I do not disagree with you about the myths and fables told about the camel spider, I ask you to consider the shock experienced by anyone being awakened at night by one of these creatures. In fact, the reason for my contacting you is to tell you a story.
In 1968/69 as a British soldier I spent a 9 month tour of duty in The Arabian Gulf (Bahrein, Oman, Sharjah). As part of a joint British Army/Trucial Oman Scouts group we set up a tented camp in Oman. One morning a Grenadier Guards sergeant (6feet 4inches of pure muscle) received the hock of his life and fainted from that shock when a camel spider dropped from the roof of the mess tent right into his breakfast!
As I said earlier we all heard the stories of anaesthetization before ingestation, but I wonder how many hundreds of years those tales have been in existence?

Yours sincerely
ex-sergeant -----------

editor: Thank you for that great story!

Find the largest collection of camel spider pictures on the internet at camelspiders.net

The enigmatic, huge, screaming camel spider ...read the stories below.

Go now to the see the camel spider picture everyone is talking about.

THE CAMEL SPIDER BUZZ PAGE:

Soldiers in Iraq have lots of hair raising stories about these erie creatures.

ATTENTION SOLDIERS! Did you have an experience with camel spiders you would like to share? Please e-mail us at hair-raising-camel-spider-story@camelspiders.net and tell us all about it. Include your name only if you like. If you would like to include pictures, feel free to do so. Thanks to all the troops, their dedication and sacrifice.

Stories Continued:

Author: Stephan Parrish
I was cleaning up a classroom in Las Vegas when I spotted this guy. I thought she was following me from Iraq; I had no idea they lived in the Southwest. Anyway, I decided to take a picture with my phone...here it is...feel free to post it in your picture section. Sorry about the quality. Click here to see this classroom camel spider...Thank you Stephan

Author: Unknown
If you are walking around and you bump something that is casting a shadow over it, and the sun makes contact with it, you better run. It will instantly run for your shadow....and scream the whole time it's chasing you.

Author: Scientist in the Middle East
One Camel Spider was described as, "having beady eyes, a hairy body, and jaws that bulged like Popeye's forearms, it was something from a nightmare."

CAMEL SPIDER PICTURES

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