Care sheet:

This care sheet is a general one, to all species and genus. Nevertheless there is some littles differences between species, which need to be respected.

Names in different languages:

French : Amblypyge, araignée 24 heures, araignée à fouet
English : Whip spider, Tailless whip scorpion
Spanish : Tendarapo, Carazon, Amblipigido

Taxonomy :

Whip spider are composed by two sub-orders :

- Paleoamblypygi Weygoldt, 1996, wich are only composed by one species: Paracharon caecus Hansen, 1921 (Paracharontidae) and 5 fossil species.
- Euamblypygi Weygoldt, 1996, which contains 160 actual species and 2 fossils.

Euamblypygi are splited into 4 families: Charinidae (genus Catageus, Charinus and Sarax), Charontidae (genus Charon and Stygophrynus), Phrynidae (genus Heterophrynus, Phrynus, Acanthophrynus and Paraphrynus) and Phrynichidae (genus Damon, Phrynichodamon, Musicodamon, Euphrynichus, Phrynichus, Trichodamon and Xerophrynus).

Legal status:

Not protected. (No CITES or any European reglementation).

Repartition:

They could be found in almost any continent. From North America to Oceania,Including Latin America, Africa, Asia and even Europe with Charinus ioanniticus (Kritscher 1959) and Sarax mediterraneus Delle Cave 1986 1986 living in Greece. Family repartition:

- Paracharontidae: Guinea-Bissau
- Charinidae: Almost everywhere
- Charontidae: Southern asia, Oceania
- Phrynidae: Americas (including Antilles), a species also occurs in Oceania
- Phrynichidae: Africa, Arabic peninsula, India and Sri Lanka.

Biomes where the different genuses could be found:

- Tropical forest:
• Charon
• Euphrynichus
• Heterophrynus
• Paraphrynus
• Phrynichodamon
• Phrynus
• Stygophrynus

- Savannah:
• Acanthophrynus ?
• Damon
• Xerophrynus

- Desert:
• Musicodamon

• Xerophrynus

For the other genuses, you could find some more information on the repartition area and biotope sheet of the species.

Description:

Like all arachnids, Whip spiders have a body separated in two parts:
The first part, The cephalothorax, is heart shaped (that’s why it is called Corazon in Spanish). On it are attached 2 chelicerae, 2 pediapalps used as raptorial legs and filled of spines. The first three (except in Phryninae where there is more) are very elongated on the tibia (distal side)(it can happen that the first one disepears during the early development of some species). Then 4 pair of legs. The first pair is very elongated and is used as antennae (antenniform legs). On the prosoma (=cephalothorax) are found 8 eyes. They are splited in three ocular globes (2 laterals composed by 3 eyes each, and one median with just 2 eyes).
The second part – the abdomen- is ovoid and composed by 12 segments. Each one is easily identifiable by a well-visible sternite and terga.

Size: Whip spider have a size around 5 mm to 50 mm. Size are given from the distal extremity of the chelicerae to the distal extremity of the abdomen, but legspan can reach 600 mm !

Sexing: There is two manieres to determine it. The easiest is to look at the pedipalp size: in some species (especially in Damon) males have greater pedipalps than females.
The second method is to look at the second sternit (from the proximal side): females have a X well pronounced instead of male which have not.

Behaviour:

Whip spiders are nocturnal and lucifugus animals, then they need dark shelters to hide during the day. Some species are strictly arboricolous and live almost only in heights.
Beside this, three species are soil inhabitants: Paracharon caecus lives only in termites nests, and the two species of Tricharinus live in ant nests, even one is specific to Atta ants !

Sociability: as a general rule, whip spiders are solitary, and –when placed together- “tensions“ can be noticed between animals. Some species are more tolerant when they are in couple. But most of the time it’s limited in time. For exemple, a pair of Heterophrynus longicornis (Butler, 1873) can be kept together (only if It’s a couple, never when it’s two males, or two females !) for up to 6 months. Some species like Heterophrynus alces (Pocock, 1902) are very intolerant, and will fight to death. For matings, the male need to be introduced first into the female’s terrarium, to allows him to feel and drop some sexual pheromones. Otherwise, he will be taken as a prey for the female..
Despite that, Damon diadema (Simon, 1876) is a very sociable specie, and can be bred with plenty of other specimens regardless their sex or stage. Some “strokes” from the elders to the youngest, can even be noticed!

Maintenance :

Terrarium :

- Size: Of course it depends of the size of the whip spider. Most of the times - in literature- a 20X20X20 cm terrarium is used to breed Damon variegatus (Perty, 1834), it is a minimum. A 30X30X30 cm terrarium seems to be a reasonable size for the biggest Phrynidae species.
- Decoration: Because they are lucifugous (light intolerant), it is better to use plastic plant instead of real ones, because you have to place a light to make them grown. Or, if you do so, you will have to place a very dark hiding place. The shelter is very important. The whip spider rest inside all day, and go out at night, when luminosity begin to decrease. It’s very easy to do one with an empty cork tree trunk. It is also essential to have a place inside the terrarium, hight enough, where the whip spider could easily hang up, head down, to molt

Temperatures: temperature around 25°C is often recommended, but thoses arachnids could easly handle temperatures around 20°C, or less. But, they don’t like important temperatures variations, so temperatures below 15°C or above 30°C should be avoid. Species from savannah or desertic area can handle it more easily than the others, but it’s really not recommended.

Hygrometry:

- Desertic species (Musicodamon atlanteus Fage,1939): hygrometry below 50% is recommended, but a water hole is nevertheless necessary.
- Savannah species: Hygrometry from 60°C to 70°C is OK. Below, it could be fatal for them. The presence of a water hole is preferable.
- o Tropical species: Hygrometry from 70°C to 90°C is OK. Below, it could be fatal for them. The presence of a water hole is preferable.

- Lightning: It must be avoid, however –because the whip spider are not able to see them- red or blue colored bulb could be used by night to watch them.

Alimentation :

Whip spider are not very complicated. Every insect will fit, as long as its body length is shorter than the one of the whip spider.
Fishing behaviour has been recorded in some species such as Heterophrynus cheiracanthus (Gervais, 1844) or Damon diadema (Maquart, personnal observation). They eat very few insects, and one cricket per week is enough. They can fast easily for several months before the molt or when they are stressed. Non eaten insects should be removed from the terrarium to avoid them to attack the arachnid.

Reproduction :

Every datas in the following paragraph are just indicatives, at a temperature of 20°C and for Heterophrynus longicornis.
First of all: the male has to be placed inside the female terrarium first. The opposite way could lead to a deadly fight between both individuals.
The mating occurs in total darkness.
The two specimens will face each other, and will make vibrate their antenniform legs while walking. At the end (it could be long), the male will drop a spermatophore on the ground, and will guide the female on it. The female will collect the sperm, and they will split. Most of the time, one of them will get back to the remaining of the spermatophore to eat it.
One month and a half later, the female will lay eggs (between 20 and 50) into a bag (firstly liquid, then it will quicly dry). She will keep that bag under her abdomen for 3 month (or more), until the youngs hatches.
When they hatch, the babies are whitish (except the abdomen, which is greenish) they will keep that coloration until their first molt. Then they will arbor a normal color. The pulli (youngs before the first molt) don’t eat. After the molt, they will split up, and begin to eat. At the beginning, they will molt every 1-2 month, but then as they grew up, they will molt less and less often, this time increase to one every year, or even less.

Litterature:

Ladle, R. J. & Velander, K. 2003 “Fishing behavior in a giant whip spider” The Journal of Arachnology 31: 154–156. Réveillion, F. 2009 : Taxinomie et biologie des amblypyges (Arachnida : Amblypygi), Le bulletin d’arthropoda 36 - 2e trimestre 2008, édition GEA : 31-49. Weygoldt, P. 2000 : Whip spiders (Chelicerata, Amblypygi) Their biology, Morphology and Systenatics, Apollo Books, 163pp.