Gonyleptid Harvestman

January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil

This image of a harvestman in the family Gonyleptidae is one of my favorites from my trip to Caraça Natural Park.

As a kid, I cherished my Golden Guide to Spiders and Their Kin. Ever since I saw an illustration therein of a wild looking Gonyleptid, I’ve wanted to find one. I got excited early in the trip when I found a shed skin. On the last night, I was out with my headlamp and I encountered not just one but two!

They were both difficult to photograph. Although slow moving, they just wouldn’t stand still. I had to keep herding them back onto the trail. Eventually, this one stopped in an area that made for a relatively uncluttered background.

Gonyleptids include the largest of the harvestmen and are only found in South and Central America.

Here’s a wider shot showing the whole thing.

References:

Wikipedia entry for Gonyleptidae

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4 Responses to Gonyleptid Harvestman

  1. Spectacular! Makes my little ol’ Leiobunum look positively mundane!

    I’ll be in Brazil the last two weeks of January – I should be so lucky as to encounter one of these.

  2. Troy Bartlett says:

    I look forward to the blog entries from that trip!

  3. jason says:

    Wow! What a cool critter. I’m with Ted: All the harvestmen I see (here in Texas) now seem downright prosaic.

  4. Patrick Coin says:

    That is something else–an armored harvestman.

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