Welcome to my Puerto Rico and El Yunque photo exhibit. Where everyday is an adventure.

Whip Spider (the Guaba)

A for-real Puerto Rican monster. Officially called a Whip Spider (Chelicerata: Amblypygi) but locally know as a guaba or gvaba. These are located all over the world not just in PR. This particular one is about the size of your hand but allegedly they can get up to a couple feet wide (this would be mostly legs with the body only being only a couple fingers wide). It eats crickets, small lizards, and frogs. They are nocturnal and hang around caves and rock outcroppings. Locally there are known to bite but have no venom. The expert on these is Peter Weygoldt who has a book out on them. He states in the book that they do not bite and are harmless to humans. The Taino Indians were deathly afraid of them.

here litle guaba, nice little guaba

The guaba has arms that will unfold out in front by several inches and skewer their hapless victim with half-inch long spears. They then pull the frog, lizard, or other large insect in and rip it apart to eat. They do not produce venom or silk for webs.
Whip spiders are confusing to the experts. They are under the order Arachnida but they are not a true spider and thus different experts will put them in different orders. Technically they are under the umbrella of Megoperculata as are whip scorpians (Uropygi) and web or true spiders (Araneae). Sometimes both whip spiders and whip scorpians or under a superorder Pedipalpi.