September Spiders

[Guest simon]

More spider aceness.

 

 

 

Enormous Spider Web Found In Texas

 

ScienceDaily (Sep. 13, 2007)

 

An arachnaphobe’s worst nightmare, the gauzy, insect-laden web drew more than 3,300 curious visitors over the three-day holiday to this 376-acre park on the shore of Lake Tawakoni, 50 miles east of Dallas. On Labor Day, the park recorded 1,275 people visiting just to see the web.

 

“When I first saw it,” said Park Superintendent Donna Garde, “I was totally amazed. What ran through my mind was that this looked like something out of a low-budget horror movie, but I was looking at something five times as big as what you’d see on a Hollywood set.”

 

Stumped as to the web’s origin, the initial consensus of arachnologists and entomologists who saw an online photo of the web sent by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist Mike Quinn was that it may have resulted from a “mass dispersal” event. In such an event, millions of tiny spiders or spiderlings spin out silk filaments to ride air currents in a phenomenon known as “ballooning.”

 

Quinn collected a sample of spiders Aug. 31 from in and around the gigantic web and took them to Texas A&M University in College Station for analyses. Entomology Department researcher Allen Dean identified 11 spider families from the sample. The most prevalent species was the Tetragnatha guatemalensis, or what Quinn dubbed the Guatemalan long-jawed spider, since this species didn’t have a common name. Guatemala was the country in which it was first documented.

 

“I drove 50 to 100 spiders to A&M on Saturday,” Quinn said. “Spider experts tend to specialize in one or few families of spiders. There are nearly 900 species of spiders known from Texas, so no one is an expert on all the species.”

 

Quinn described the Lake Tawakoni web as “sheet webbing” since it covers a large area of trees, which is more typical of a web spun by a funnel web spider rather than the classic Charlotte’s web, or orb web, like that produced by long-jawed spiders. He speculates that the park’s spider population exploded due to wet conditions this summer that resulted in an abundance of midges and other a small insects upon which the spiders feed.

 

The Guatemalan long-jawed spider ranges from Canada to Panama, and even the islands of the Caribbean. According to Quinn, the spider is about an inch in length with a reddish-orange head- and-thorax. Spiders, like mites and scorpions, are arachnids, a group of arthropods with four pairs of legs, saclike lungs and a body divided into two segments.

 

So popular was the monster Lake Tawakoni spider web phenomenon that it ran as the lead story in the Nation section of the Aug. 31 New York Times, and was the newspaper’s most e-mailed article that day. The nightmarish quality of the story prompted satirical takes on several Internet Web sites and led to national coverage on Fox News, the Discovery Channel, CNN and other networks. Quinn termed the degree of news coverage “remarkable.”

 

Dr. Norman Horner, a retired dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, was on his way to the park mid-week to study the “not very common” phenomenon, when he received a call from park staff telling him that a heavy overnight rainstorm had made the trail impassable and knocked down much of the giant web.

 

“So far,” Horner said, “we have been informed of webs of this nature occurring in Florida, California, Canada, Italy, Ohio and now Texas. In all cases, they appear to have been produced by tetragnathids, but have other species associated with them.”

 

Superintendent Garde said Sept. 5 that the crowds coming to see the wondrous creation had slowed to a trickle, and that they were not being allowed to access the nature trail due to the sloppy conditions.

 

“It was fun, but we were really tired,” Garde said. “The spiders are great little guys. They put our park on the map.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I swear to god i would not step foot anywhere near them fuckers the spider must be of harry potter spider proportion's.

[Dr Arthur De Sabre]

Just moved in to a house built around 1900, the garden looks a bit like some of those texan pictures - heavily overrun and fucking webs everywhere. Went to switch on the hose to give the plants a bit of water after the move and came face to face with a fucking huntsman sitting inches from the tap - jibbed the watering for the night. Couple of days later, me and the missus are sitting in the tub, bathroom steamed up to fuck, and Boris the huntsman shows up in the bathroom. Me bird freaked and was trying to jump out, poor auld Boris was trying to climb up the molding and away but keeps slipping, I finished me tab and me guinness then got out and calmed the missus down.

 

Boris has now shed his skin - apparently huntsmen do this to grow, funnily enough he left it in the bathroom, just above the jacuzzi, had to hoover the fucker down last night.

[Paulie Dangerously]

Think what you want but the fact i have never seen a spider in my flat would prove me right.

 

Science 0 Simon 1. Take that boffins!

 

I am actually going to try this when I find some conkers before the kids do

[Thants]

I've got this little beauty living with us at the moment in the kitchen. Been there slowly growing and eating away for the past 3 months.

 

 

I've now only 3 small others in the house at the moment, the cellar spiders fell away a few weeks ago and the harvestman (not strictly a spider) won't come in as they prefer my cucumber plant outside.

[Uncle_Meat]

Spiders rarely last a couple of days in my house, the cats like to chase and eat them.

 

Go cats, you spider-munching muddy funsters!

[Dr Arthur De Sabre]

Btw if simon's conkers don't work, lavender is the way to get rid humanely. Keeps the Fu kers at bay in a hippy stylee. Lavender and eucalyptus spray for yer moths and. Cockroaches.

Reading this reminds us of the auld crocodile Dundee, British house spoof that ain't a spider - huntsman - now that's what I call a spider

[Dr Arthur De Sabre]

I've got this little beauty living with us at the moment in the kitchen. Been there slowly growing and eating away for the past 3 months.

 

 

I've now only 3 small others in the house at the moment, the cellar spiders fell away a few weeks ago and the harvestman (not strictly a spider) won't come in as they prefer my cucumber plant outside.

 

I'll see yours and raise you:

 

 

This is the afore mentioned Boris's bird I think, bit smaller

[Jennings]

Think what you want but the fact i have never seen a spider in my flat would prove me right.

 

Extending the theory must mean they repel women too?

 

 

 

 

 

Oh shaddup I am kidding!!

[JMARKH]

I don't find spiders offensive and let them live, also if they bite you you get the added bonus of climbing up walls and swinging from building to building so it is not a bad thing at all.

[Guest The Big Green Bastard]

I've got this little beauty living with us at the moment in the kitchen. Been there slowly growing and eating away for the past 3 months.

 

 

I've now only 3 small others in the house at the moment, the cellar spiders fell away a few weeks ago and the harvestman (not strictly a spider) won't come in as they prefer my cucumber plant outside.

 

Feed them some small pieces of meat and watch them grow to gigantic proportions.

[Joe Le Taxi]

Feed them radioactive meat and watch them grow.

 

[Thants]

Feed them some small pieces of meat and watch them grow to gigantic proportions.

 

I was thinking that the other day. My cat leaves plenty of catfood so I was wondering if they'd eat it. Seeing as the catfood bowl doesn't tend to be covered in spiders I came to the conclusion I'd be left with a bit of cat food in the corner of my kitchen window.

 

Also regarding Lavender keeping out the spiders, how come I have about 6 garden spiders happily making their web every day in my lavender?

[RedKnight]

I just put down my Amazing Spider-Man #587 and evacuated three of them to the toilet. Double standards? Never.

[Thants]

I just put down my Amazing Spider-Man #587 and evacuated three of them to the toilet. Double standards? Never.

 

Negged for drowning spiders.

[Paulie Dangerously]

I'm staying in me ma's for a few days and there was just a big one on the fireplace. Not being in my house I did not have access to my usual collection of Raid and long things to beat them with. I grabbed the first thing that came to hand which was a can of Insette hair spray. It's now lacquered and I assume dead stuck to the hearth

[She Knows It]

I'm staying in me ma's for a few days and there was just a big one on the fireplace. Not being in my house I did not have access to my usual collection of Raid and long things to beat them with. I grabbed the first thing that came to hand which was a can of Insette hair spray. It's now lacquered and I assume dead stuck to the hearth

 

It'll be stuck forever if you used Insette. Like that mosquito in the amber from Jurassic Park. A 2 second burst would probably stop a grown man in his tracks.

[Dirk]

I used to kill them but for a number of years I've not been able to kill them - I put them outside using a magazine/envelope and a glass. The same goes for most bugs.

[Paulie Dangerously]

I'm half hoping it's going to do a T-1000 and if I hit it with something it'll smash into a hundred pieces. But then I have a 100 pieces of spider on the floor, and I don't need that shit

[rondeco]

I saw one today hunt down a wasp that got caught up in its web and it killed it in minutes. It was fascinating stuff. Just rolled it in webby shit and then began feeding on it. I was intrigued so I threw a leaf into the web and it got stuck. The spider flew down to it and when it realised it was a leaf, it set about freeing it from the web.

 

I couldn't believe how quickly it got rid of the leaf so I threw another one into the web and the exact same thing. Just cut the leaf free and dropped it to the ground. Awesome.

[odris]

Fuck, i hate this thread! There is a massive one in my room, it just fell off the wall and now it's probably making it's way up my bed as we speak, i am petrified of them.

[Chocoholic]

I say hello to the ones in my house, and call them Demetrius.

[JohnnyH]

Fuck me! I'd not seen a single spider in the house up until yesterday, and now I've seen 5 in the last 48 hours. And the last fucker who just walked across my sitting room was the size of a fucking horse. I was sitting with a mate watching the City game and this fucking monster galloped out from the under the couch. I opened the sliding door in the hope he'd piss off out as he was right beside it, as I walked across the room to get a magazine to help him on his way, the fucker chased after me. HE CHASED AFTER ME!! A bleedin' elephant gun wouldn't have detered this bastard. I wont sleep tonight for fear of any of his pals trying to rob me car or something.

 

Anyway, Mr Spider is with Jade and Michael now (assuming both Goody and Jackson were flattened by my Worlds Greatest Heavyweight Boxing Champions book and flushed down my toilet - two flushes as well I may add)

[odris]

Some nights i am scared to look at the wall in fear of there being one eyeing me up for the kill.

[Anubis]

Fuck me! I'd not seen a single spider in the house up until yesterday, and now I've seen 5 in the last 48 hours. And the last fucker who just walked across my sitting room was the size of a fucking horse. I was sitting with a mate watching the City game and this fucking monster galloped out from the under the couch. I opened the sliding door in the hope he'd piss off out as he was right beside it, as I walked across the room to get a magazine to help him on his way, the fucker chased after me. HE CHASED AFTER ME!! A bleedin' elephant gun wouldn't have detered this bastard. I wont sleep tonight for fear of any of his pals trying to rob me car or something.

 

Anyway, Mr Spider is with Jade and Michael now (assuming both Goody and Jackson were flattened by my Worlds Greatest Heavyweight Boxing Champions book and flushed down my toilet - two flushes as well I may add)

 

Now you've done it. The spiders will have their revenge.

 

While you sleep they will come trip trippity trip up the stairs. They will climb your duvet and sit at the end of the bed, watching you with their eight eyes. Then they'll smile their evil spider smiles and go scuttle scuttlety scuttle over the duvet, using four of their eight legs to pull it back. Then whip whippity whip you'll be wrapped in their silken spidery web, before nip nippity nip they bite you and inject their jellifying spider poison. Then, as your insides are liquified in a crescendo of pain they'll go slurp slurpitty slurp as they gobble you up. And in the morning your mates will find a dry mummified husk.

 

Bye.

[fowler9]

right annoying little fuckers, kept getting them on my bedroom ceiling

 

dont mind them during day but cant go to sleep knowing the cunts are there, my technique this year has been to trap em in an empty crisp packet n send em into bottom of the bin