camel spider pod final

The host apologizes for the delay in posting episodes due to her father's passing. She expresses gratitude for the continued support of viewers. The previous episode discussed the Komodo dragon, and this week's episode focuses on the camel spider. The camel spider is found in dry climates in Asia, Central America, and North America. There is limited research on them, but they are known to eat insects, rodents, lizards, and small birds. They have large jaws and use a sawing motion to break down their prey. They are not venomous but have digestive fluids that help liquefy their prey. They can grow up to six inches long, run up to 10 miles per hour, and weigh up to two ounces. They are nocturnal and tan or dark brown in color. They are solitary animals and reproduce once a year. Mating can be direct or indirect, and females lay 50 to 200 eggs in a burrow. They guard the eggs until they hatch and do not Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Wild Wild Wonder Festival. I'm your host, the one, the only, Sariyana, back at it again with another week. Y'all, I apologize for taking so long and taking the gap from posting episodes. Unfortunately, my dad passed away about two weeks ago, and so I've been dealing with that and arrangements and so forth. So it's been a lot, but I am back, and I have seen all of y'all on the podcast page still watching videos, still watching the videos, still commenting, sharing, listening to the podcast. And I appreciate each and every one of you every week, but I say it again because it's true every single time. So I appreciate that. I appreciate you for that. Now, last time we spoke, it's been a while, but we spoke about reptiles, specifically the Komodo dragon. Awesome episode. Loved it. But this week, we are going to go into the invertebrates, and specifically, I have one coming live for you today, and that is the camel spider. The camel spider is also known as the sun spider. It's also known as a wind scorpion, and it's also known as the main thing is Egyptian giant. I don't know if it sounds that right, but we're going to call it the camel spider. The camel spider is a spider that is found in dry climates in Asia, Central America, and North America. So y'all need to be aware about them because you could possibly see it around somewhere in the U.S., you know. So before I get further into it, I do want to say a small disclaimer. Unfortunately, a lot of research hasn't been done on them, and I will explain it later, so it's not a whole lot of information, but I'm going to give y'all what I got and what I found. And y'all can go out there and do more research in the future and then come back to me and say, hey, I did research on it. So here's what we have. As far as their diet, they are not venomous, but they can kill like a venomous insect, like a venomous insect, yeah. So they can eat insects. They can eat rodents. They can eat lizards. They can eat small birds, which is surprising because they're itty-bitty. They're itty-bitty animals. So the fact that they can take down some of these animals is mind-blowing to me. They usually, they can be cannibalistic, but that is not in every species of camel spider, but they can be. They can't eat their own. They have large, powerful jaws that can eat or that can be up to one-third of their body length. They use this to grab onto their victims, and then they turn them into a pulp by chopping and sawing motion and grinding them up, kind of like a meat grinder. In that specific sense, they're also, like I said before, they're not venomous, but the digestive fluids they have in their stomach help liquefy their victims' flesh. Lack of better words. That's how they eat. So it breaks it down so that they can swallow it like a good old smoothie into their belly. Because if you see these things, I'll have to post a video on the page, but if you see these things, they're not that big. They're very itty-bitty compared to a lot of, they're the size, I guess, of a larger-sized insect, but compared to other animals, for them to be eating a big bird or a small bird and other rodents for the size is wild. So they can get up to six inches long. They can run about, run, walk, about 10 miles per hour, which is pretty fast for an insect, and they can weigh up to two ounces. Now, other than that, all I can find is they're nocturnal, and they are tan or dark brown in color, and that they're solitary animals. I've heard mixed things about aggression. I've also heard that sometimes they kill prey but didn't eat them. That could be because they're saving them for later or just because they felt like killing them. I'm not really sure of their reasoning behind that, but there wasn't much more information there about them. If you want to go in-depth, their body is very complex in the fact that their abdomen is split up into segments, and each segment has its own detailed history and fun facts about it, and you can do that if you're really into insect bodies and the anatomy part of it. But either way, the mating process is similar to many other insects. The fun thing about them is that they usually only reproduce once a year, and the fun word, if you want to know a word to be kind of smart at the dinner table, univolting means to reproduce once a year. That is the word of the day. But they can also – so there's two ways they can reproduce. Everybody knows the main way you can reproduce, okay? But there's direct and indirect ways to transfer the eggs over. So direct way is this camel spider meets another camel spider. They decide they want to reproduce, and they do what they need to do. One pulls the others back, and the rest is history and babies come later. Now, for indirect transfer, there is a liquid. The child from the male is put onto the ground, and then he inserts that into an area but not directly touching her, if that makes sense. It's a process, okay? That being said, the main thing you need to get out of that is two ways, indirect, indirect. And then from that, when the female is pregnant, she digs a burrow. She then puts her eggs in it, anywhere from 50 to 200 eggs. That's a lot. Could you imagine carrying 50 to 200 babies? Then she guards them typically until they're born. And the female also does not feed during the time she's laying her eggs and protecting them. So during that time she – or before that, she tries to fatten herself and eat as much as she can. We did talk about – I can't remember off the top of my head. There is another – octopuses. Octopuses are the other animals that do that as well. They do not eat when they are – they do not eat when they are putting the – or guarding the eggs while they're waiting for their babies to develop. So they fatten themselves before, and then they kind of starve and die after. Same concept. They don't starve and die after, but they don't eat. They focus on solely protecting the nest. Once the babies are born, they're pretty much on their own from what I could find. And that's that. I guess the mom just leaves and do what she needs to do. So there are predators just like every animal, especially your insects. The biggest predators for them are toads, scorpions, and bats. And on average, they live about one year in the wild, which is not very long. I guess it's long for an insect, but it's not that long. Conservation status is unknown because they're not really researched much in captivity because it's very difficult. And then, funny enough, the conservation status is unknown, but the threats are habitat loss, poison, and starvation. I don't know if it's starvation by their choice or starvation for another reason or just starvation because there's not enough food supply, whatever the reason there. But that's the three main threats. But the actual status of the population is unknown. We have quickly gotten to the fast facts. I know this was an extremely quick episode. Like I said, there wasn't a lot of information on it, which maybe I should give you all, too. But I'll have something to replace that coming soon. You all just stay tuned. But the fun facts, the best part, it's all great, but the best parts of the episode is the fun facts. The first one, they're known to follow in a human shadow to stay warm. They cannot stay in the sun, which brings me to fact number two. They flee from the sun. They don't like being hot. I would name these the drama kings and queens of the invertebrate world because they say it's too hot outside. They're not going to be in it. They're going to hide in someone's shadow. So often a lot of people, they get a bad rep for chasing people. But they're not really chasing you. They're just trying to get in your shadow because it's hot. That's kind of the concept behind it, which I thought was kind of funny but cool. And then the last one, they aren't really spiders. They're called camel spiders and sun spiders, but they're not actually spiders. They are in the same group as spiders. They are an arachnid. But they're in their own little section of that, which is the sawpaw eugids. I don't know. Sawpaw eugids. That sounds right. That looks like what the pronunciation says, sawpaw eugids. So they're in their own little group. So they're not spiders, but yet they're called spiders. They're also sometimes called wind scorpions, but they're also not scorpions. They're in their own category. Who named them? I don't know because they're also not only found in the desert. And they're not found with camels. Don't know how the name came about. But anyway, that is all I have for you today about the camel spiders. I hope you enjoyed this little tidbit. We will have more videos coming up. We're going to finish going through the cycle like we did before. So I still have to talk about amphibians. I thought the next week, next time will be birds. And then we'll talk about amphibians as well. I believe that's after the bird section. We are having a shift in the page soon. We'll start having guests and all kind of cool things happening. So if you want to stay tuned, please, please, please, please, follow Wildlife Wonders with an S podcast, all one word, on Instagram, so you can stay up to date with all the latest news. I have videos from the recent ride through Animal Park I went through in North Carolina, so definitely go check that out. And, of course, videos of bearded dragons and other animal feedings on my page. Any content will be on there. If you have any questions about the podcast at all, feel free to message on there. Facebook page will be coming soon. Check out the YouTube channel, Wildlife Wonders Podcast, same name, on YouTube. There is currently one video on there. And, like always, thank you for tuning in. Make sure you listen on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. And I'll see you next time. Bye.