Charon grayi, giant whip-spider from caves

Charon grayi is a member of family Charontidae together with Stygophrynus. The identity of Charon is based on the number of spines on pedipalpal patella that mostly have two spines about equal in lenght. Other character is on the undivided pedipalpal tarsal.

Charon grayi itself is synonyms from 4 different species i.e. Charon hoeveni, Charon subterraneus, Charon beccarii and Charon papuanus the first three species are found and described from Indonesian Island such as Java and Ambon Island.

The Charon grayi firstly described by Gervais (1842) as Phrynus grayi from Philipines and all the other described species are synonimized by Kraepein (1899) and known only one species of Charon grayi.

Many arachnologist are not agreed with the decision and the species is need a lot of revision work.

Charon grayi, the whip-spider that commonly found in SE Asian caves. The taxonomic status is need to be revised. The picture is taken from cave in Gunung Sewu. They eat a crickets or other arthropods. (Foto: C. Rahmadi)

Charon grayi, in Pacitan cave exibit the mating behaviour (C. Rahmadi)