EWWWW!

I woke up at 5 (the alarm doesn't go off until 5:30) and the power was out. I went out into the parlor with my headlamp on and started my Bible study. It was rather irritating to have every bug in the room come and hover in the light, especially because there was a recent unveiling of many beetles of various sizes in response to the first rainy days. I smashed one caramel-colored, half inch beetle enough to stop it from flying around my face, but not enough to put guts all over my Precepts course. I brushed it off and on to the floor.

About ten minutes went by and I heard a sound that I initially thought was a mouse. We don't keep food in the parlor, so I thought that was quite strange and got down on my hands and knees with my flashlight and looked under the chairs. I saw this little monster. The noise was its huge pinchers chomping into the beetle.

Solifugid

The battle was on. This guy was about two and a half inches long, and I simply had to kill him. He was SO fast, that it was difficult to track him around with my headlamp, so I decided to pull my feet up criss-cross-applesauce and wait for the power to return. Again I heard "crunch, crunch, crunch." The power came and went a few times and I chased him behind furniture two times, but I have to admit, my heart was beginning to pound a little harder every time I missed him. He mostly clung to the edges of the walls, so I decided I would move to the couch in the middle of the room. I even kept my feet down, as my workbook, Bible, and colored pencils were all over my lap and I kept getting up and down to try to get him. Within a few minutes he came scurrying across the center of the room, right between my flip flop protected feet. Yikes. I removed said flip flop again and tried to whack him before he dodged behind the TV stand.

Before another 10 minutes or so, Devin got up and saw me on the arm, of my chair with slipper (that's what flip flops are called) in hand, and wild eyes. The power came on, and I got him! His choppers are really quite spectacular. They don't specialize in human bites, but sure would hurt. Thanks to my sister Sherry who researched the picture, we know it is a Solifugid "one who runs from the sun," a nocturnal beetle eater who sometimes attacks lizards and mice. It appeared to have and extra set of legs, but the extras are apparently used for grabbing things from the air. The hair on his legs was as long as the hair on my head! What a creep.