#23056 - Horsespider! (equinus triantulus triantulus)

This unusual mammarachnid was found on the salt flats of Canvey Island.

Number of legs: 8

Size: adult male horsespiders can grow anything up to 15 hands in height and weigh about half a ton. Horsepider young (calfs) can be anything up to twice this size.

Habitat: beaches and plains

Diet: hay, which horsespiders catch in a web

Social grouping: horsespiders do everything in pairs - hunting, playing, boxing, sleeping etc. - so one can keep 'lookout'.

Reproduction: horsepiders have sex in the normal manner. The female gives birth to a litter of up to a dozen horspider pups, which go through the stages of: larvae, foal, pupae, child, chrysalid, larvae, chrysalid then back to foal again, then finally calf, pup and hatchling. They leave the nest aged two months, blind, but possessed of an incredible sense of touch.

Warfare: horsespiders are divided into two main social groups or castes, on the basis of length of mane. Every summer, they fight bitterly, sometimes for territory, but mainly just for sheer hatred. If only they could live in peace!

Relationship with man: horsespiders are hard to tame, but they can be captured and drugged. A captive horsespider can make a trusty, if sleepy, mount.

Useful byproducts: a full set of eight horsespider hooves has long been considered by adventurers and archeologists as the only way to open The Gate Of The Aztecs without heavy-duty digging equipment and dynamite. Additionally, horsespider eye fluid is good eatin', and the unique combination of strength and flexibility in horsespider stomachs enables them to be inflated to enormous size, for use in zeppelins, dirgibles and drivers' airbags.