I suspect many of you have already seen the pictures of the giant man eating spiders living in Iraq. The stories that came back (across the web) with our U.S. servicemen serving in Iraq told of poison injections, amputated limbs, cohabitated sleeping bags, intimidating jumping prowess and midnight attacks worthy of a Hollywood horror film.

Many of these rumors are absolutely false, except for the amputated limbs part… just kidding. First off, the name “spider” is not accurate. Although it’s part of the arachnid family with spiders and scorpions, it is its own branch called Solifugae, feel better now? These guys are the victims of vicious rumors about their giant size, they only get to be about 5 inches across; about their toxicity, they are not poisonous; about their speed, they are faster than a horny toad on a hot rock so watch out for that. They also do not spin webs. Here’s the bad news: they live in the United States too. Not the big suckers like in the photo, but their North American cousins. As far as eating human flesh, a la Zombie, that is a lie. Perhaps if you and one Solifugae were stuck on a space craft millions of light years from Earth and you ran out of tater tots, MAYBE he would give you that hamburger head look like in the cartoons, otherwise they enjoy small insects and the occasional vegetative matter. So rest easy America, I’m here to protect you with facts.