Solifugids — Children of the Earth
Page 2 of 2 | © 2005-2010 text by Robert G. "Spider Bob" Breene III, Ph.D., photos by Wade Harrell
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Windscorpion mating habits are intriguingly distinctive. There is variation with species, but in general, once the male becomes mature, he gives up his zigzag search pattern for a more straight line course and begins to eat less often. One male covered well over a mile in less than two hours seeking out females with its human eyewitness in tow across the deserts of southwestern Africa. The male may find the female on the surface, or he may somehow sense her holed up in her burrow, and digs her out. She will come to the surface; or if in the open, the male briskly touches her and jumps back, before moving forward and making a grab for her abdomen. If the female rejects the male's initial advances, he won't continue to stalk her like so many other male animals of all sorts seem to do. Instead, he turns tail and runs off to find an interested female. The male holds the female's legs and pedipalps against his body and exudes a spermatophore (sperm packet) from the underside of his abdomen onto the female. He quickly backs away, then returns to retrieve the spermatophore before lifting the female's abdomen and placing it directly into her genital opening. The male usually returns to his hyper, female seeking behavior afterward. The fertilized female excavates a chamber and lays about 60 eggs. In some species, females stay to guard them, in others, females leave. Most species of windscorpions have one or two generations per year.
Windscorpions are high on the wish-list of arachnid keepers. Unfortunately, they are also the most difficult arachnid to keep successfully in captivity, and only a couple of people have managed to raise a few from eggs. Four to six weeks is about the longest they'll live in captivity. Speculation has it that penning up this active animal makes them sluggish and prone to die quickly. They can be handled as long as you don't try to stop or impede their movement. If you guide one onto your hand, it will take a quick run all over you. This makes them great at parties. Well, my kind of parties anyway, if I ever had any.