Invertebrates
Camel Spider
Solifugae · also called camel spider, wind scorpion, sun spider, solifuge, solpugid
The camel spider is one of the most mythologised animals on Earth — the subject of viral war-zone photos claiming it is half a metre long, venomous, and hell-bent on chasing soldiers. Almost none of that is true. It is a fast, jaw-heavy desert arachnid that is neither a spider nor a scorpion, and it has no venom at all.
Overview
Camel spiders — the order Solifugae, over 1,100 species — live in deserts and dry scrub on every continent except Antarctica and Australia. They are carnivores, taking insects, other arachnids, and, in the largest species, small lizards and rodents, killed with the jaws rather than venom. Most are small; the biggest have a 7 cm body and a leg span to 15 cm.
The jaws
A camel spider’s defining feature is a pair of enormous vertical jaws (chelicerae) that can be a quarter to a third of its body length — proportionally among the largest of any animal. It uses them to cut and mash prey. It has no venom glands and no silk.
Not a spider, not a scorpion
Solifugae are arachnids but a separate order. What looks like a front pair of legs are pedipalps — sticky-tipped sensory limbs held up to feel and grab.
The myths
Camel spiders can’t run as fast as a car (top speed ~16 km/h, in bursts), don’t chase people — they run toward a person’s shadow for shade, which only looks like a charge — and don’t feed on camels or lay eggs under skin. A big one can bite painfully with mechanical force, but there is no toxin.
Status
Camel spiders are Not Evaluated, generally common in suitable desert, and not known to be threatened.
Camel Spider: common questions
Are camel spiders dangerous or venomous?
No. Camel spiders (order Solifugae) have no venom glands at all — this has been confirmed anatomically — so they cannot deliver a toxic bite, and there is no antivenom because none is needed. A large camel spider can nonetheless give a genuinely painful bite if picked up or trapped against skin, because its oversized jaws close with a lot of force and can puncture and tear, and such wounds can become infected like any other. But the popular image of a deadly desert monster is wrong. They are not aggressive, they do not seek out humans, and the many alarming stories circulated by soldiers stationed in the Middle East are exaggerations or misunderstandings.
Do camel spiders really chase people and run as fast as a car?
Both claims are myths built on a grain of truth. Camel spiders are fast for their size — the quickest can manage roughly 16 kilometres per hour in a short dash, nowhere near "25 mph" and nothing like a running vehicle, and they cannot sustain it. The "chasing" comes from the behaviour that gives the group its names "sun spider" and "solifuge," meaning "flees the sun" — in open desert they run to stay in shade, and the largest nearby patch of shade is often the one cast by the person watching them. To that observer it looks exactly as though the animal is charging at them, when it is really running for cover and the person happens to be the cover.
Are camel spiders actually spiders?
No. They are arachnids — the group that includes spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, and harvestmen — but they belong to their own order, Solifugae, distinct from spiders (Araneae) and scorpions (Scorpiones). Unlike true spiders they produce no silk and no venom, and their body plan is different — they have those enormous forward-pointing jaws, sensory pedipalps that they hold up like an extra pair of legs, and a more visibly segmented abdomen. The various common names — camel spider, wind scorpion, sun spider, sun scorpion — all reflect people trying to file an unfamiliar animal under something familiar.
Do camel spiders eat the stomachs of camels, or lay eggs under their skin?
No, that is folklore and the source of the name "camel spider." They do not burrow into camels, feed on livestock, anaesthetise sleeping soldiers, or lay eggs in living flesh. Camel spiders are predators of insects and other small animals; the biggest species can overpower a lizard or a rodent, but a camel is obviously far beyond them and of no interest. The association with camels probably comes simply from both living in the same deserts, plus the spider's habit of sheltering in the shade of large animals and objects.