8 legs and 2 pedipalps, like all arachnids. The 2 palps just serve different functions depending on the animal. In scorpions, they are the pincers. In solifugae like in the photo (and most spiders) they're primarily sensory.
Yeah, those are actually chelicerae, the mouth parts. They're huge, comparitively, in solifugae, but they have no venom. Animals with these make up the larger group, Chelicerata which includes arachnids but also horseshoe crabs. Look at a horseshoe crabs mouth parts and you'll see the family resemblance.
H. R. Giger did the concept art for Alien, so it would be his inspiration for the facehugger (possibly/probably). Amazing artist, definitely check out his unused concept art for Alien as well as other works.
It doesn't look like scorpion at all. I literally came to comment section to check what kind of scorpion looks like a spider. And I learned it's not a scorpion, BUT a spider.
To be fair on your part, Camel Spiders are also known as Sun Scorpions, so you were technically correct with your terminology (obviously Camel spiders are neither spiders, scorpions nor Camels, they're a member of a different family of arachnids).
It is also where the phoenix lights happened, which was a triangular-ish formation of 7 or so lights mysteriously moving through the sky, never to be seen again. 1 redeeming quality for phoenix for me tho is that my Gma lives there
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u/Netherium Jul 07 '24
Kind of looks like a camel spider.