Spiders are awesome

[Ard]

I know those things are harmless, but I had one huge bastard of a garden spider sitting next to my porch screen door last spring.  Was as big as my hand (but I have small girly hands).  Wish I'd taken a picture, but I was too busy shrieking, while trying to run past it with the laundry.

[Typhon]

I was just sifting through some site photos from field work I did a month or so ago and remembered this beaut (garden spider, Argiope aurantia):

[image]

Wow, great picture, beautiful spider.

Thanks, I just set it to my desktop background. Its abdomen was about as big around as a nickel!

Nice sized garden spider!  Did it have any color on the under-abdomen?

[voodoolily]

Nice sized garden spider!  Did it have any color on the under-abdomen?

Nope, they're just black.

I know those things are harmless, but I had one huge bastard of a garden spider sitting next to my porch screen door last spring.  Was as big as my hand (but I have small girly hands).  Wish I'd taken a picture, but I was too busy shrieking, while trying to run past it with the laundry.

Here's another one with my hand for scale (you wuss):

[Lantyssa]

I wish I had a good camera so I could have taken pictures of my jeweled spiders.  There were four of them around the yard, one in each common color (red, yellow, white) and a strange orange orange-yellow I've never seen before.

[Selby]

I've been trying to get a shot of this guy for the longest time and finally caught him mid-drop making his web.  He lives outside my kitchen window and only comes out at night and dusk.  I see them all the time but have no idea what they are.  There's also a black widow nearby that has been hiding and I only saw once and never managed to get a good shot of either.

[tgr]

Looks very much like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_garden_spider

[Selby]

Ah!  So it's a she as well.

[voodoolily]

That's what I was gonna guess! We have those all over our garden every summer.

[Sir T]

Garden Spiders live in the center of their webs though, this one seemingly only comes out for web maintenance at dusk and dawn.

Almost all the bug spiders you see are females. I guess spiders are so aggressive towards one another that equal sises across the genders would result in a fight, not mating.

[Draegan]

[Paelos]

Why? WHY!

[tgr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRV4d9LCawU

[Cyrrex]

I clicked the link.  But after seeing the still image, there is NO WAY I am pushing the play button.  This thread is bad enough without it turning into Spiders that Attack.

[Strazos]

You don't really get to see much of anything.

[Engels]

You don't really get to see much of anything.

That's half the terror, tho. Not knowing where the spider ended up. Down his shirt? In the laundry hamper?

[Cadaverine]

That's half the terror, tho. Not knowing where the spider ended up. Down his shirt? In the laundry hamper?

Laying it's eggs in his still twitching corpse, most likely.  That's what he deserves for trying to trap the thing.  You don't try to capture them, you kill them with fire.  Preferably by burning the house down around it.  From orbit.

[Amarr HM]

That's an Australian huntsman, basically a docile house-spider, they are non deadly and rarely ever bite. My Australian cousin was bitten by one once, rendered him fairly ill.

Sorry to ruin the illusion, but he tried to run away and then got rammed with a plastic basin. Probably quite damaged or missing a leg or two, poor fella.

[RhyssaFireheart]

That's an Australian huntsman, basically a docile house-spider, they are non deadly and rarely ever bite. My Australian cousin was bitten by one once, rendered him fairly ill.

Sorry to ruin the illusion, but he tried to run away and then got rammed with a plastic basin. Probably quite damaged or missing a leg or two, poor fella.

Look, I get that Americans have a habit of making their houses BIGGAR UND BETTAR than everyone else, but that doesn't mean you get to make the house spiders bigger, too.  I'm sure we'd be fine with the tiny, annoying varieties we have now.

I totally agree on letting that monster on the ceiling alone though.  I completely disbelieve the "docile" part.   

[Amarr HM]

No honestly they are like any typical housespider around the world. I've shared rooms with them myself when I lived in Australia, they do look quite scary but they're totally harmless.

[MuffinMan]

Their victim's corpses have just never been found.

[Paelos]

No honestly they are like any typical housespider around the world. I've shared rooms with them myself when I lived in Australia, they do look quite scary but they're totally harmless.

No! I refuse to knowingly sleep in a room with a palm sized spider free to crawl on my face!

[ghost]

I prefer my bedchamber to be like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

[Lantyssa]

Spiders I can handle, but roaches are not cool.

[Amarr HM]

No! I refuse to knowingly sleep in a room with a palm sized spider free to crawl on my face!

Haha yeh we did have one in our backpacker bedroom but we ushered him out the window succesfully. I was reffering to an office I worked in, it was kind unnerving but the boss liked them around the office cause they ate real vermin, so I had to get used to the idea. Wasn't so bad... ok I lie it was quite unnerving, but trust me they are docile despite our perceptions.

[Amarr HM]

Spiders I can handle, but roaches are not cool.

Agreed, huntsmen eat those fuckers why they should probably be applauded.

[proudft]

Who will win in Battle Spider v. Ant?  http://vimeo.com/13681269

[Xuri]

That's an Australian ... spider, they are ... deadly and ... bite. My Australian cousin was bitten by one once.

My brain filtered out the rest of the words in your post.

[Amarr HM]

That's an Australian ... spider, they are ... deadly and ... bite. My Australian cousin was bitten by one once.

My brain filtered out the rest of the words in your post.

Well played 

[Fordel]

Who will win in Battle Spider v. Ant?  http://vimeo.com/13681269

Always a bigger fish!



My question is how does a palm sized spider get INSIDE your house? Invest in some window screens or something!

[01101010]

My question is how does a palm sized spider get INSIDE your house? Invest in some window screens or something!

Or a shotgun. Fuck tupperware.

[Merusk]

I'd tell you how but I imagine you want to sleep tonight.

[Fordel]

It's fine, I'm in Canada, the winter kills them all before they get bigger then a quarter.

[Merusk]

They're flat and can squeeze into incredibly tight spaces. Wolf Spiders aren't nearly as flat and they can get into some pretty tight places. I've had a few squeeze right down into the 1/8" gap sealed by the weatherstripping of my front door to try and come inside in the fall.  There's a few pictures out there of Huntsmen squeezing behind clocks or other objects you and I think of as "tight to the wall"

http://www.asktheexterminator.com/spiders/Huntsman_Spider_printer.shtml

So, since houses have tons of seams everywhere (foundation, sill plate, brick joints, window cracks, doors) they can squeeze inside so long as they find a hole or a path through your wall.

Fun fact I learned recently: Some species, like the Jumping Spider, see in the UV range. (hell, it might be all of them because I know the ones that hunt scorpions also see in UV - scorpions glow in UV light) So they're probably seeing holes you and I aren't.

[ghost]

Spiders I can handle, but roaches are not cool.

With all your talk of hunting I figure you'd just blast the little fuckers into oblivion, regardless of insect genre.

[Strazos]

Crazy spider was doing some Flash-type nonsense...was he wrapping the ant in webbing as he circled?