sign in a cave in Laos

4 December 2012

Whip spider mother and babies

This is my first sighting in a cave of a whip spider with babies. Whip spiders or amblypygids are arachnids.
ambly = blunt, and pygi = rumps
Unlike true spiders which have 8 legs, with whip spiders the first pair of legs has developed into long whiplike feelers that are three to four times longer than the remaining three pairs of legs.

Having been caving in Merapoh a few times  recently, I have noticed that there are a lot of whip spiders in the caves. They are of the genus Stygophrynus.

It was very exciting to see this mother with her babies on her back. After the eggs hatch, the babies climb onto the mother's back.



This is a close up of the young. The pink 'strings' are the legs of the babies. The babies are newly moulted and are not yet fully pigmented and sclerotised.



The whip spider was seen in Gua Hanuman in Merapoh.

See more pictures on this site.

© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission








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