By Tim Binnall
A British tourist visiting South Africa could not believe his eyes when he spotted a bizarre bug that appeared to be half-spider and half-scorpion. The creepy encounter reportedly occurred as Pedro Goss was visiting the country's Royal Natal National Park. While walking along "a dried mud path on a mountain about 2,500 feet above sea level," he noticed the weird insect "moving very strangely" on the trail in front of him.
Initially thinking that the creature was "a spider with scorpion-like looks," Goss got a closer look at the oddity and realized that "I had no idea" what the weird bug might have been. Fortunately, an entomologist was able to identify the strange insect as being a solifugid, which is a creature often misidentified as a spider or a scorpion but is actually neither of those things.
According to Astri Leroy, the insects are "fierce little predators and quite aggressive," boasting "a four-part scissor-like set of jaws lined with sharp little teeth." As for the solifugid that Goss caught on film, the expert suggested that the bug's behavior seemed to indicate that it felt threatened as, under such circumstances, "they will dig a hole in the ground at high speed and disappear."