I was sitting on the couch reading my garden books this morning when I saw the critter back in the house by my books that were stacked on the floor! I took a closer look and realized it was NOT a whip scorpion, but a nonvenemous sunspider or solpugid that's related to both the spider and the scorpion. (No wonder I thought it was at first a scorpion by how fast it moved) with long pedipalps in the front. I caught it for the third time, took it to the bathtub to photograph it against a white background, and set it free outside under the shade of the creeping juniper shrubs.
The little guy seemed anxious to go underground, trying to burry itself under the gravel rocks. I went back inside to grab my camera and when I returned to the scene the little guy was gone.
Mo was nearby in the shade, meowing. He didn't seem to mind the activity at all.
(Seeing the photo of the sun spider here makes me realize how scratched-up the bathtub is. I never noticed those scratches before.)
More on solpugids, click here: http://www.whatsthatbug.com/solpugids.html
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