fears, phobias and freaking spiders!

[ramseycat]

Did you see the thread title, Ramseykittens?

I did but I clicked anyway. We can discuss spiders without the need for gigantic pics of them.

[Lady Cop]

this will teach Ramsey to click on spidees...if i have to wear UGGS to bed, so can she!

[kitty1]

http://essexterror.com/spiders/arewonderful.html

[BlueTiki]

And now . . . Armadillos are linked to leprosy in humans.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostersho...?track=rss

[Maggot]

I am in your head yes maggots maggots are alive in this mans head. Who is next?

[ZEROSPHERES]

Two nights ago I got out of bed and slipped my feet into my slippers where I was bitten three times on my right foot by a spider. Fearing it was a brown recluse as they like to hide in shoes and bedding I looked this spider up online. Turns out it was a Tegenaria gigantea or giant house spider that actually is good, albeit frightening to have around. This critter is known as the fastest spider alive and it hunts and kills the brown recluse that is poisonous and potentially lethal.

[Maggot]

I want a spider that leaps out of my bushes and bites off the head of the dog that pisses or shits on my lawn.

[Duchess]

Nonono jumping spiders...and no spiders that can move faster than I can.

[Lady Cop]

oh good. 49-million-year-old spiders. so they can use its DNA and make a jurassic spider park.



It's a face only a mother spider could love.

The latest computer-imaging technology has produce this stunning three-dimensional picture of a spider trapped for 49 million years in an opaque piece of fossilized amber resin.

University of Manchester researchers, working with colleagues in Germany, created the intricate images using X-ray computed tomography to study the remarkable spider, which can barely be seen under the microscope in the old and darkened amber.

Writing in the international journal Naturwissenscaften, the scientists showed that the amber fossil -- housed in the Berlin Natural History Museum -- is a member of a living genus of the Huntsman spiders (Sparassidae), a group of often large, active, free-living spiders that are hardly ever trapped in amber.

[Lady Cop]

this is just great news.

Like eight-legged scuba divers, some spiders can breathe underwater using an air bubble as an oxygen tank of sorts. Now, scientists have figured out some of the fascinating details of this arachnid diving bell, including that it can give the spiders more than a day's worth of air.

While scientists knew diving bell spiders (Argyroneta aquatica) — spanning just 10 to 15 millimeters in length — used an air bubble to breathe underwater in lakes and ponds, this is the first study that measures exactly how that happens and calculates how long the spider could stay underwater before resurfacing to replenish its bubble with fresh air.

[Lady Cop]

OH. MY. GOD.

It is a nightmare scenario for any supermarket. Last Friday morning, as an employee was unloading bananas from a crate in a large grocery store in south-western Germany, a large, greyish, hairy spider about 13 centimeters long jumped out and scuttled under a shelf.


The member of staff checked the Internet for images of spiders resembling the one he had just seen, and was shocked when he found a match: a Brazilian Wandering Spider (Phoneutria nigriventer), billed as one of the world's most venomous and aggressive spiders.
The store in the town of Bexbach was immediately evacuated and the police were called in. A spider expert from a nearby zoo helped a team of 30 people who gingerly searched the shelves, at times switching off the lights to lure the nocturnal beast out of its hiding place.

Disturbingly, they found nothing. On Saturday night, pest controllers decided to solve the problem by spraying the entire 5,000-square meter store with poison. All the perishable food was discarded but the store plans to keep tinned goods, arguing that the pesticide dissipated quickly and wasn't dangerous to humans.

It was due to reopen later on Monday. "Experts believe the spider should be dead," a police spokesman said. They haven't found the body, though. And it can't be ruled out that it left the supermarket and is now roaming Bexbach.

Anyone encountering it should be very careful. Amy Stewart, the author of "Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects," cites the Brazilian Wandering Spider as one of her top five worst bugs. A bite doesn't just cause severe pain, but also leads to breathing problems, paralysis and even death.

That isn't all. Stewart writes that the creature is fearless and so aggressive that it will stand on its hind legs, prepared to take on any challenger, however big.

[Duchess]

Holy shit! It stands on it's hind legs!

[Duchess]

Ugh! It gave me the willies! Ugh!

[Maggot]

I would just step on it.

[username]

I would just step on it.

That's why I married my husband. It was an unspoken vow, but I made it clear he was on spider duty till death do us part.

[Duchess]

I don't think I could bring myself to step on it but I'd beat that ugly fucker to death. I'm totally creeped out by the fact it stands on its hind legs. *shudder*

[Lady Cop]

if it bites you guys, you die with a hard-on.

GAWKER
A five-inch Brazilian Wandering Spider—the most venomous spider in the world, which "can also cause priapism in humans"—stowed away in a box of bananas and leaped out in a German grocery store, running through the aisles and causing pandemonium on Friday.

After shutting down the store down for three days, a team of 30 wildlife experts failed to find the spider. They did, however, spray so many pesticides on the premises that they're pretty sure it's dead by now, unless it left the supermarket and is roaming the German countryside as we speak. No injuries have been reported.

Brazilian Wandering Spiders have previously stowed away in bananas destined for Tulsa and Chatham. The "aggressive" spider's venom can cause excruciating pain, paralysis, asphyxiation, and painful erections that last many hours and can lead to impotence in humans.

So if you find a corpse with a giant boner and two tiny fang marks in southwestern Germany, know that it is the zombie spider of Bexbach, and it is coming for you next.

[Duchess]

[Lady Cop]

A Colorado resident was bitten by a poisonous black widow spider 19 times -- and DIED!

Black widow spider bites are poisonous, but rarely fatal, health experts say.

Jeff Seale, 40, reportedly noticed the bites on his foot two weeks before he died. The Boulder County Coroner's Office says it could be 4-6 weeks before an official cause of death is released -- but Seale's sister is nevertheless convinced that the bites are responsible.

"I think it's definitely related. He was in really good health up until that point," she told a reporter for Fox. "He worked at a horse stable in the evenings, and he very well could have brought one of the spiders home in his things, or picked up some stuff from one of the horse sheds and brought one of the things home," she said.

Seale, a former high-school baseball star, became obsessed with the spiders, going so far as to spray his house to prevent a spider infestation.

[Duchess]

"He worked at a horse stable in the evenings, and he very well could have brought one of the spiders home in his things, or picked up some stuff from one of the horse sheds and brought one of the things home," she said.