Abstract
ALTHOUGH next to nothing is known of the past history of the spider-like creatures discussed in the following pages, it is tolerably certain that since glacial times they have been confined in their distribution, so far as Europe is concerned, to Spain, Greece and South Russia. Since, therefore, they were certainly unknown to our British and Anglo-Saxon ancestors, and probably also to the early Romans, it is not surprising that the English language has no name for the group of which they are members. To the ordinary Englishman they are spiders, and as spiders or tarantulas they are usually described by travellers who have come across them in India, Egypt and elsewhere. The Greeks, on the contrary, who were doubtless acquainted with the species inhabiting their own country and Asia Minor, seem to have recognised them from the ordinary spider, since they had a distinctive name for each of the two groups. The spiders were called Arachne (αράχνη); the others Phalangium (Φαλάγγ?ιυ), in allusion to their five pairs of long-jointed limbs. Ælian, for example, tells how a country in Æthiopia was deserted on account of the appearance of incredible numbers of Scorpions and Phalangiums. But Pliny, when quoting the same story, introduces Solpuga1 in place of Phalangium. And since the latter is now used in systematic zoology for a totally different group, namely for the so-called Harvest or Long-legged Spiders, so abundant throughout Europe, no further reason need be given for adopting Pliny's name for the species now under discussion.
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POCOCK, R. The Nature and Habits of Pliny's Solpuga. Nature 57, 618–620 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/057618a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/057618a0
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