The threatening vibes of whip spiders (Warning: NSFA)

If any group of animals looks like a nightmare made real, it’s the whip spiders. Also known as whip scorpions, these creatures look like flattened versions of true spiders, and they’re close relatives of their namesakes. Their front pair of legs has been transformed into long ‘whips’, which they flail ahead of their bodies to search of prey. Anything unfortunate enough to make contact gets grabbed by the whip spider’s massive pincers, each twice as long as the animal itself and tipped in fiendish spikes. Despite these fearsome weapons, fights between whip spiders are more sedate affairs. They’re more like dances, carried out to strict protocol and consisting largely of bad vibes. Two whip spiders circle one another and start gently probing each other with their whips. These movements become increasingly jerky and intense until the spiders start rapidly vibrating their whips in front of their opponents, without touching them. ...