Camel spiders have a nightmarish reputation. Urban legends, fuelled by the appearance of their extra large, powerful mouthparts, their voracious appetite and their tremendous speed, surround these hairy arachnids. However, stories of camel spiders leaping in the air to disembowel camels and of their feasting on sleeping humans remain, as yet, merely stories. They look like 10-legged spiders, but aren't in fact spiders and the 'extra' two legs are large sensory organs. Most of the thousand species hunt only at night and live in hot dry deserts, where they are one of the top predators.

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