Fun Fact #40: That's a ten legged spider! You say as it creeps across the room. Well guess what? There is no such thing as a ten-legged spider but there are a few genuses that look like they have 10 legs because they have huge pedipalps. The genus Solifugae (camel spiders) is one such example. Pedipalps are a pair of appendages around the mouth parts and are often used to help with eating and in males, reproduction. In Solifugae these pedipalps are so elongated that they actually look like an extra pair of legs and so you have your 'ten legged' spider.

Question

trancenova · Answer

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae (check it out for some pictures). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedipalps

anonymous · Answer

trance r there any spider with six legs?
when i was in 2nd grade some spider bit me on the toe and one of my aunty told me that it's a six legged spider that bit me. i beleived that then ,but now i think it's stupid:P
 AND YEAH SOLIFUGAE REALLY LOOKS LIKE THEY HAV 10 LEGS  COOOOOOOOOL!

trancenova · Answer

Lol! They really do hey :P Yeah, there are some six legged spiders -though I will have to get back to you with more details later :)

anonymous · Answer

it's really there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

trancenova · Answer

Okay, well I may have been a little to quick to jump the gun there. I had thought I remembered reading in a key somewhere of a six-legged spider, but I looked it up again and it referred to the number of eyes, not legs.

In saying this though there are some rare cases of six legged spiders (though I couldn't find an example of one) and a number of species are known to loose pairs of legs (either by accident - predation or as a method to survive the winter). -

anonymous · Answer

ok thankuuuuuu:)