Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, March 1899: Volume LIV, No. 5, March 1899Various
History
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, March 1899: Volume LIV, No. 5, March 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The following post-mortem data will perhaps aid in giving a clearer
idea of this curious little creature. The length of the body from the
front of the cephalo-thorax to the end of the last post-abdominal
segment was fifty-two millimetres--a little more than two inches; the
length of the tail was fifty millimetres, thus making the total length
about four inches. The width of the abdomen in its widest part, near
the center, was thirteen millimetres, or approximately half an inch.
The claw-bearing palpi, or "feelers," which are large and very
powerful, have an extreme expansion of fifty-eight millimetres, nearly
two and a half inches. The tail is a curious organ, and consists of
forty-four short, jointed sections of a pale wine color, with a light
yellow ring at the base; a few short, scattered pointed hairs are
found on each segment. It is about two thirds of a millimetre in
thickness at the base and tapers to about half this diameter at the
end. When alarmed, the _Thelyphonus_ holds it curved over forward
after the manner of the true scorpions; a habit that probably points
to some common ancestor. Its true function appears to be that of an
extra palpus or "feeler."
The _Thelyphonus_ is generally of a wine color. In some places, as on
the cephalo-thorax, this color is black; around the mouth parts, the
legs, the sternal plate, and the under side of the abdomen, this wine
color is very pronounced.
The eyes are eight in number. Two of them are close together, on
opposite sides of a slightly elevated ridge at the front of the
cephalo-thorax. These eyes are bright, black, and beadlike, and about
two thirds of a millimetre in diameter. A little farther back, on the
outer edges of the cephalo-thorax, are placed the remaining six eyes,
three on a side, in a triangular group. These eyes are not quite as
large as those in front, but they are of a shining yellow color, and
altogether give the face of the whip scorpion a decidedly uncanny
look.
But to return to the history of my pet. As Madam Thelyphonus had
obviously been accustomed to rather primitive furniture, I did not
overburden her new apartments. A thickly sanded floor, a salt dish
filled with fresh water, a square of pine bark the size of my hand,
slightly elevated, with a few nice pieces of green moss to remind her
of the country home she had left, and my involuntary guest was ready
for housekeeping. She accepted her new quarters without question or
examination, and promptly retired to her bedroom under the bark.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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