The Southwest is full of adventures

Yesterday I drove to Chaco Canyon with two friends, Patty and Becka, on the way to visiting my humble abode. Even though we lacked sunscreen, I did not have the self-control to not hike for four hours. And even though we thoroughly enjoyed the Chacoan ruins and petroglyphs, and a desert lunch, and were turned away from the pictograph trail due to unusually high waters, I am currently down one bottle of aloe vera and in a fair amount of discomfort. The sun and I haven't been on speaking terms since.

In appropriate soon-to-be-teacher mentality, the three of us watched The Freedom Writers at my house. Upon turning the lights on and preparing for bed, I noticed a bizzare creature in the middle of my floor. For a moment, I thought it was a scorpion. Thankfully, Becka duly noticed that it did not have a tail. Before killing it, I made Patty take a photo. In it's less threatening state, I became even more intrigued by the spider-scorpion-ant hybrid and decided to keep it in order to identify it. Patty and I could only refer to it's moutparts as rosebud, or lobster claws. CAUTION: If you don't like spiders and bugs, do not continue reading. Here's what I found online about the invader of my new home (as copied from http://www.ruralmysteries.com/blog/):

Sun Spiders and Wind Scorpions in Your Backyard
We recently caught and released three more strange looking arachnids that have been invading our home-office and garage-laboratory. We used a modified catch and release technique derived from our rattlesnake relocation plan to determine that they appear to be a hybrid between a scorpion and a spider.
We finally identified the bug as a member of the order Solifugae, usually referred to as solifugids, wind scorpions, or sun spiders.
Are we the last to learn that these things thrive in the North Fork Polygon??
These critters are really fast, difficult to catch, and almost impossible to photograph. Here are some interesting mysterious facts about solifugids:
It's not a spider! ...but it's not a scorpion either.
They can "run like the wind" and are considered the world's fastest arachnid capable of speeds when running near 10 mph!
They look like they have 10 legs but they actually have 8 legs and they only use 6 of them for running.
It does not have venom glands or web-spinning organs so you can probably keep one as a pet.
They have the strongest jaws - relative to size - of any animal on earth and have a voracious appetite, feeding on mites, ticks, and other pest bugs.
The desert variety, known as the Camel Scorpion, grows to 6 inches in length and was featured in the July 2004 issue of National Geographic Magazine.
They're also known as solifuges, solpugids, camel spiders, false spiders, haarskeerders, jagspinnekoppe, jerrymanders, roman spiders, and walzenspinnen.
If you kill one, two more will take its' place! ... So please don't kill them!




So, it looks like I was right! It is a scorpion-spider hybrid! And it is creepy looking. Thank God I didn't see it run, otherwise I would have been more terrified. I'm also thankful that this one was only about an inch long instead of six! Unfortunately, as mentioned before, I did kill it. Therefore, I get too look forward to introducing myself to its friends when I return home later this week.
I hope this doesn't deter you all from wanting to visit me out here in the desert...