Bugs: Why we keep our shoes on

That little fella there by my right shoe is called an uropygid.  They’re also commonly known as whip scorpions (even though they’re not scorpions) or vinegaroon, in Spanish vinagrillo (sounds like bee-nah-GDEE-joe).  I’m not sure if I’m allowed to call them "bugs" or not, because they’re not actually insects, they’re in the spider family (arachnid), having 8 legs.  Those two long skinny things in front that look like antennae are technically legs.

I’m sure everyone moving from somewhere like Canada to the tropics has bug stories and pictures – I haven’t posted many photos because I’m waiting until I have more of a "collection", but I thought you’d like to see this one.

I was walking up the hill to our house when I saw something coming out of a small drainage pipe.  It was dusk, and apparently the vinagrillo was coming out to hunt.  Vinagrillos are carnivorous, and they come out at night to hunt for insects like crickets and cockroaches.

This one was about 10cm (4″) long, and probably double that with the tail and front legs stretched out.

I had just come back from an excursion with the school, so I happened to have my camera.  I grabbed it and put my foot in front of the animal to keep it from going into the shrubbery, and for perspective.  Right after I took this picture, it went into a defensive posture, as you can see here.  It went from being flat as above to holding up its back end and pincers.  It obviously wasn’t worried about being seen, but was going for intimidation, rocking forward and backward on six of its legs and looking pretty ominous.  (By the way, just click on the pictures to see a better version of each photo. You can see a larger size of the photo by changing the size in the upper right in the photo gallery.)

Vinagrillos actually aren’t really dangerous to humans.  They can pinch with their pincers, and they also spray an acid if they get upset.  It smells like vinegar, hence the name.  That’s apparently the worst thing about them, because if you squash them the smell is aweful.  Actually, in captivity they rarely spray and actually are sometimes sold in pet stores.  There are various kinds of vinagrillos in more tropical areas around the world.  They keep down the population of other insects, so they’re not all bad.

Just really, really nasty looking.