This momma whip spider is giving her squirming babies a piggyback ride. When a female whip spider lays its eggs, it carries them around in a fluid-filled sac on its belly. After the tiny hatchlings emerge, they quickly scramble onto their mom’s back.
“When the babies first hatch, they look like gummy candies,” says Eileen Hebets, an arachnologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She studies arachnids, which include spiders, scorpions, and similar eight-legged creatures. Each baby whip spider appears squishy because its exoskeleton, or the outer covering of its body, hasn’t hardened yet. That makes the babies very vulnerable. In fact, that’s why they hang out on their mother’s back—not for fun, but for protection!
Whip spiders are also known as tailless whip scorpions. They live in tropical areas worldwide and can grow as large as a person’s hand. Despite their names, these creatures aren’t spiders or scorpions—they’re in their own arachnid group, says Hebets. Whip spiders are amblypygids (am-BLEE-pie-gids). They don’t produce venom or spin webs. But like other arachnids, amblypygids have eight legs. Their two front legs have evolved over millions of years into long, thin, whiplike structures. These appendages work like an insect’s antennae, helping whip spiders sense bugs as they hunt at night. Whip spiders then nab their prey using pincer-shaped claws.
Sure amblypygids may look a bit creepy, but they’re great parents and harmless to humans. Some people even keep them as pets!