One of the ugliest bugs you'll ever meet...

[schrackman]

About 7 years ago I encountered the most grotesque looking bug I've ever seen crawling on my carpet. At first I thought it was a spider but it had pincers instead of fangs. I had no clue what it was. Then last week I was foraging through websites looking for a particular scorpion and came across the Wind Scorpion on National Geographic (http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0407/feature5/), which is a member of the Arachnida family (which includes spiders), and viola! there was that ugly bug I had seen so many years ago. Then last night I saw what I thought to be a spider crawling on the floor my way, only to realize after swatting and stunning it that it was a Wind Scorpion!! So naturally I had to snap a couple of pics of it this morning. Sure wish I had a better zoom lens. Sad to say, but the creature met his demise after the photoshoot. This is a male Wind Scorpion by the way. The females are much larger and uglier. These bugs are also called sun spiders or camel spiders and some species can actually span 5 inches across! The Wind Scorpion I found was only about an inch long.