Once more, how do you post an image?

FreezerBurn said:

First the image has to be hosted somewhere, such as on your own web space, or on some other web site.

To post an image, you simply type the web address to it, enclosed by the following image tags:

[.img] web adress goes here [/img.]

Take the periods out of the image tags tho, I only put them here so the tags would show up.

Has anyone tried using Monkey Balls to keep spiders out of their house?



also known as hedge apples, hedge balls, osage apples, ...

8 Legged Freaks!

ahem...

I mean:
The Golden Silk Spider or (Nephila clavipes)

These are the Big Mo'Fo's that live behind my studio in South Florida.

I was never afraid of spiders until I was mowing the back yard one day last summer and ran right into one of the webs with one of these right in the middle of the web.

I screamed like a 10 year old girl, rolling around the dirt smacking myself silly until she got off my face. She didn't bite me. If she had, I would have probably been institutionalized!

Since then, I've counted 47 of these spiders in the back yard alone. There is nothing but citrus trees that, from what I've learned, the rotting fruit on the ground attracts a lot of bugs. So these guys have webs all over the place.

What I can't figure out is, from all my research, these guys are very terrirorial. But I've photographed these suckers sharing the same web and, like a coloney, have their webs connected to one another.

My neighbor and I joke that they are stratigically planning to capture a human! We saw some bird feathers in one of the webs one day and laughed our heads off. (I'm sure the wind blew them in it)


I've noticed that the bigger they get, the higher up in the trees they are.

The male is like 1/10th the size of the female.







Is it me or does the head look like a human skull?


To give you an idea on how big they get: check this one out!



I've actually gotten quite facinated by these critters and have taken lots of photographs of them. I've never seen spiders get this huge and live so close together. I don't have them online yet. The ones above I got from a google search.

FreezerBurn: do a reply with quote to see the code.

I LOVE SPIDERS - I used 2 play with them as a girl.
have 2 add - no Spiders in Norway R dagoures.

but I hate vespres - 1 almost killed me 1ce - this ugly yellow and black devils

they must have been made by the devil - so the puple ppl. gets attracted 2 them - heheheh - but the devil does not fool me. - heheheh



And I hate moscitoes - thay love my purple blood.

HOLY FUCK!!!

Thank you. Thank you so much for scaring the living shit outta me with that GIGANTIC spider pic at the top of this thread.

I have severe arachnophobia.

Tom said:

That looks like Audrey 2 from "Little Shop"!

Erendira said:

thanks to erendira i have a fear of spiders to...she freaks me out with her spider horror stories shes told me ... :Eek:

LaVisHh said:[quote]Got a story you wanna tell?

Thanks to IceNine and SexLovely...I got to thinking, and decided to post this thread...

Anyone got a real FEAR of them?

Don't be scurred! I'll protect you, baby!

Damn eye'm itching all over!

Spiders are yummy.

chickengrease said:

yamomma said:

Be thankful that spider didn't land in your mouth!!! Dayum, those spiders are Nasty lookin...



[This message was edited Thu Nov 14 20:02:40 PST 2002 by LaVisHh]

logger said:

How do you prepare them? Deep-fried like tempura, dipped in sauce? Do you bake a whole pile of them, casserole-like, topped with seasoned breadcrumbs?

Just wondering.

LaVisHh said:

Yeah it's called a TARANTULA HAWK

A female wasp finds a tarantula by smell. Generally, she scampers across the ground to locate a burrow. She will enter the burrow and expel the spider, then attack it. She may also encounter a male tarantula during his search for a mate. In an attack, the wasp uses her antennae to probe the spider, which may raise its front legs and bare its fangs. (A tarantula does not always counterattack.) She then attempts to sting the spider. She might seize the spider by a leg, flip it over on its back and sting it, or she may approach from the side to deliver a sting. Once stung, the tarantula becomes paralyzed within seconds. The condition will last for the remainder of its life. The wasp may drink the body fluids oozing from the spider’s wounds or from its mouth to replenish nutrients and water she used during the attack.

If the wasp expelled her victim, she will drag it back into its own burrow, now a burial vault, lay a single egg on the spider’s abdomen, then seal the chamber. If the wasp succeeds in stinging a male tarantula on a mating hunt, she will excavate a burrow, drag the paralyzed spider inside, lay her single egg, and seal the chamber.

Once the egg hatches, the tiny grub, initially connected to the spider by the tip of its tail, bends over, attaches its head and begins to suck. It continues sucking until its final moult. It then rips open the spider's abdomen, thrusts its head and part of the thorax inside, and "feeds ravenously," as one entomologist described it. As one might hope, even for a spider, the tarantula at this point is finally dead.

sting the edit
[This message was edited Thu Nov 14 20:15:56 PST 2002 by 4LOVE]

Christopher said:

I'll tell you some more tonight.

4LOVE said:

So that's what they did with it...I never knew that... interesting...

LaVisHh said:

You caught it before i could put up a more "correct" post of tarantula hawks.Read my post above and you get a more accurate answer(i was wrong on a few things)

4LOVE said:

Dayum...who'd a thunk that wasp I was watchin was doing all that?

LaVisHh said:

You'd be amazed at what's going on in the insect world or even the plant world.As a kid that was all i was into.I guess it's what has made me the nerd i am today

What a great topic. It's brings up a million insect/arachnid memories from my childhood. The big brown spiders, we called them "cowboy spiders" were relatively harmless, but they freaked me out EVERY TIME! They seemed to love the indoors and would "appear" on the wall or ceiling of the our home in Kona.

LaVisHh, I too was bitten by a large centipede while asleep. I took it on the haunch - my entire leg seized. Horrible! To this day, I fear the creepiness of the centipede the most!

Now haw am I supposed to get some sleep. Now I might have nightmares of those pesky spiders.

TheMax said:

LOL!!! You described it perfectly...you'd be sitting down in the living room, or kitchen, or wherever, and tada! there it was...on the wall or ceiling...the terror! Good description there, heheheeheheh...

Did anyone where you live catch the centipedes and remove their pinchers, then let them crawl around on their arms? cuz they did where I grew up, in Paauhau

luv4u said:

Nah...nightmares aren't real, heheheeh, fear when you are awake!

4LOVE said:

I agree! I am a NOVA and National Geographic FREAK...so trust me, I know... Geek is good!

The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout...

I'm very partial to spiders and ladybugs. i will never kill either one! one is lucky, the other kills other bugs not so good for our environment. however, we dont have poisonous spiders in wi. i dont appreciate them crawling on me tho, but i will usually brush them off or carry them outside.

grandebelle said:

Just the thought gives me the shivers...

grandebelle said:

I give spiders free rein in my house cos' they eat all those little flying things that give me the willies.

I never clean away cobwebs until the spider has stopped using them and I even hang a piece of cloth over the bath so they can climb out if they've fallen in.

Ladybirds, on the other hand, can go fuck themselves!! Those fuckers bite.

most spiders don't creep me out, but daddy longlegs do... if u see a spider in your house, don't smoosh it! they get rid of other pests...plus they're kinna cute, with all their eyes...