Login
Register
Comments & ID Thoughts
I have no idea what this spider is. It was collected in NW Montana, only has two eyes, and seems to have “jaws” instead of the mouth structure I typically see in spiders. I believe it’s tarsi have 2 claws, it also had quite a few spines on the bottom leg sentiment. Any help with a family ID would be appreciated!
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Apr 5, 2020
- Photographed: Jul 30, 2018
- Spider: Unidentified
- Location: Gardiner, Montana, United States
- Spotted Indoors: Other
- Found in web?: No
- Attributes:
Hi there this is a sun spider
This strange creature is class Arachnida, order Solifugae. There are a few scientifically incorrect common names for them, I just go with Solifuges. Yes, those are real jaws. These arachnids catch and kill prey by crushing and chopping with their jaws. They can give a painful pinch to large animals and chop up little animals. They make spiders seem tame by comparison. Spiders can’t even chew. Solifuges are interesting ancient animals, I recommend reading more about them. You might be able to find a more specific identification than order level. We specialize in order Aranae of class Arachnida. I think… Read more »
My apologies.. I didn’t realize it wasn’t actually a spider. Did a bit more research and found that they’re pretty uncommon in my area, quite strange that two of them ended up in our sample. Thanks for the help!
Thank you, but no need for apologies. 🙂 We know what what it is because they are submitted to our site fairly frequently along with the other orders of arachnids. I’ll add a link to this to the data that Bugguide.net has for sightings by state. https://bugguide.net/node/view/7570/data I think the data goes back 17 years and they had one sighting in Montana in that time. So it is surprising that you found TWO. You can submit your photo to them also, if you wish. They specialize in North American arthropods.