If I Had One Of Them

if i had one of them

i would name them Mr. Tickles

Phrynichus deflersi is absolutely insane

whip spiders are kinda insane as is but the fact that this one exists in a small area of the map roughly around the Gulf of Aden this creates a naming convention confusion where it's officially known as The Arabian Whip Spider but it's exclusively native to Somalia and even though it's been imported illegally into Yemen, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Djibouti I think you'll notice the obvious fact that none of those locations are in Arabia with only one of them not being in Africa so we're off to a great start.

its torso is thin and flexible 6 of it's legs are twice the length of its torso bent backwards and lying so flat that it shuffles along the ground on its knees while doing the spider equivalent of the splits

its tusks yes tusks are modified into arms that are 4 times the length of it's body with fake hands on the ends of them complete with an opposable thumb

and these work together with the remaining front 2 legs that are equally as long weirdly flexible and for some reason protrude from the spider's neck and have a second shoulder joint immediately after the one attached to the neck

they have one of the smallest mouths next to the size of their body of basically any spider and even with that the teeth are even strangely small for the size of the mouth making the creature almost flat faced

here's pic of one preserved in mid-pounce pose

just to illustrate how crazy a concept that is

and oh yes it can pounce or sort of technically it doesn't so much pounce as it does shuffle along a surface at around 60 mph or 100 kph being able to manoeuvre on a dime during this movement and also conceal itself in tight spaces moving a maximum distance of 5 feet in one of these bursts which we still don't know just how many they can do at a time.

being soft-bodied it can hide in spaces that are even smaller than the size of its thorax and it's strong enough to take down prey such as fully grown rats by grabbing onto them and dragging them to their mouth where their tiny teeth chew through the rat's neck until it bleeds to death.

for scale here's one on a human hand

and here's their prey

to say the spider is strong is an understatement

oh and by the way there's a very similar creature that's local to Southern California

just so you know

and guess what else

i have a friend in the north of England that actually keeps them as pets

oh and if you go to Egypt they flavor their French fries with its urine there