This post is the sixth in an ongoing series on arachnids. Previously, this series addressed whipspiders, hooded tickspiders, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen and solifugids. Additional posts on other weird, often overlooked or neglected groups of these creepy crawlies to follow. For a related chelicerate, but as far as science can tell, not an arachnid, see the post on sea spiders.

The vinegaroon.

By now, if you’ve been reading my continually-updated series on the underappreciated and less diverse groups of arachnids, you will have been exposed to an assembly of bizarre creepy-crawlies; among them, “headless” hooded tickspiders, library-squatting pseudoscorpions, manic, ever-hungry solifugids, family-oriented amblypygids, and amputation-prone harvestmen. Weird as these groups all are, few compete with the strangeness of the arachnids known as “whipscorpions”, “uropygids”, or “vinegaroons.”

These arachnids are members of the order Thelyphonida, a small group of arachnids comprised of only 100 species, dwarfed by larger orders like the Araneae (spiders, with more than 40,000 species) and the Scorpiones (“true scorpions”, with about 1,700 species). The order used to be incorporated in a now defunct classification known as Uropygi (which also included small, close relatives known as “microwhipscorpions”). “Uropygi” basically means “tail rump” or “tail rear” in Greek, which refers to the arachnids’ curious, thin, segmented “tail” extending from the back of their abdomen. It is this tail, or “whip”, combined with their general scorpion-like body shape, which is key to the origin of one of their common names; the “whipscorpion.” They are also known by their third common name, used frequently throughout the Americas, “vinegaroon”, which alternatively sounds like the most foul tasting Girl Scout cookie ever.

“Oh…oh god. What have I done?”

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