Spider!!!
 

Hi, all.
Long time lurker, just registered, friend of Kitsune.

I took this picture with his camera. He suggested I post it. So, here it is! It's not as lossless as I would have liked to post, but you get the idea.

Oh, and if anyone is afraid of spiders, I appologize if this makes you feel them crawling all over you, their eight little legs scampering up your leg, creeping slowly up your back....

:redr:

Hello Rakarin,

Welcome to the cellar.

Nice picture. Would you mind if we shopped it a bit?

Rather dramatic at that angle.

<img src="http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~gvidas/photos/beach/spider.jpg">

This little bugger was hanging around the porch of a beach cottage in South Carolina. Hard to tell from the photo, given there's no object of scale or anything like that, but he was 2-3" from legtip to legtip.

Here is one I took out my back window (Missisauga, Ontario).

http://shawnd.dyndns.org/albums/Wild...ider.sized.jpg

I am most definitely adding to the list of 'places i won't visit unless they can guarantee me that thos dang spiders have been removed'

~~~i'm afraid of spider~~

Feel free to do so!

You mean "she".

That's a banana spider, or a golden weaver (I remember hearing that it's one of only three kinds of spider in North America that does not have white webbing, and one of twenty or so in the world). My parents live in St. Augustine, and they have these things all over the place. You can walk around the house and see at least two or three females on any given day.
The females there can have a legspan about as big as my hand, at least 3" wide and 5" long. I swear you could harpoon them and roast them on the bar-b-q. The males are much smaller, about the size of an old half dollar coin (I'd guess 3cm for the non-USA's).

I once watched one of these molt its exoskeleton. A flap opens up on the back, and it squirms out the back. I had seen a few skins. Whe I saw one hanging with it's legs pointing forward and a split on its back, I thought it was injured from a bird or other bug. Then it started to... well, crawl out of its skin. I called my brother, and we sat and watched. Quite cool.


:3_eyes:

Quite a coincidence that this thread was just added as I was outside practicing with my macro lens today and snapped a few pictures of some bugs and this spider. This little guy (or gal) was about the size of a pea and through the viewfinder it just looked like a normal run of the mill spider. I was pretty shocked to see the details on him when I uploaded the pix onto my computer screen. If I'd known it looked like that at the time, I wouldn't have gotten as close as I did to take the pictures!

Oh GOD!!

Ok...I have no problem with spiders the size of a dime or smaller but anything bigger and I am GONE, only to return wearing my steeltoe combat boots...and all these spiders look so much bigger than they would in these pictures.

Cripes...we need an emoticon for 'getting the hell out of HERE'.

Here in Ohio we have a lot of Nurse Spiders...you can tell they're Nurse Spiders because they have little white caps on.

I have no problem with spiders the size of a dime or smaller but anything bigger and I am GONE, only to return wearing my steeltoe combat boots

Next up: Florida residents Kitsune and Rakarin introduce Cellarites to Palmetto Bugs! :D

and all these spiders look so much bigger than they would in these pictures

Rakarin, how big was that spider you took a picture of?

Introduce all you want...as long as they're in a bin or something behind a solid sheet of glass. :D

Do your Palmettos measure up to the Goliath bird eating tarantulas ? Them things get to the size of a dinner plate, don'tchaknow. I got to meet one face to face (through a nice thick sheet of glass of course!) and let me tell you, I wouldn't want to find that great bloody beast in the ceiling corner of MY bedroom, else there'd be a me-shaped hole in the opposite wall, drywall, framing and bricks be damned.

I just evicted a spider that has been hanging out in my car mirror. Funniest thing to watch though, as I pulled out from work last night, the darn thing was working on it's web ... between the outside driver's side mirror and the door. The spider was hanging on for dear life as I hurtled down the street. Unlucky for it I stopped at a long light and used the time waiting for green to flick it off the web.

Eeeeeeauuw. I am not fond of spiders.

Do your Palmettos measure up to the Goliath bird eating tarantulas ?

The big spiders, for some reason, don't bother me as much as the mid-sized ones like the ones people have been picturing. Where I used to work, a couple of co-workers had ten or so in cages that they took care of. Sitting near them, we got used to every trick in the book: a suddenly empty cage with people asking if anyone has seen "it", placing the shedded skins around the office, etc. They were pretty cool to watch.

Although, I have to say my most pleasant spider memory is one from school. A huge spider, four inches across or so, had managed to drop a line and suspend itself at chest-level in the middle of my classroom and attract the attention of a large group of people who had encircled it, watching. All it took was a good set of lungs, a puff of air, and several seconds wait as my breath travelled across the room. Just at the right moment, the biggest guy in the class ducked down and braved a closer look when the spider magically propelled itself onto him, resulting in him flailing, falling backwards over desks and chairs, and emitting high-pitched screams of terror as he thrashed around on the floor, practically tearing his clothing off to be rid of the beast. Ah, that pure enjoyment. I wonder if I assisted a lasting phobia in him?

Palmetto bugs, while off-topic for this spider thread, are what I hate the most in the realm of the creepy-crawlies. Take a roach, make it huge (four inches long or so), make it fearless (doesn't run from light, people, etc), make it want to enter your home regardless of food being around or not, and the worst part: they fly. Not only that, but if you spray one while it is on a wall, as a defence they fly at you. They're so big you know if one gets into you place because you can hear them moving around at night. UGH!

:worried:

And the "Head Nurse" spider wears knee pads? ;)

Yet another reason why I don't live in Florida. I hate bugs.
:rattat:

I have two reasons not to live in Florida despite their fairly reasonable firearms laws.

1. Humidity
2. Bugs

I have relatives who live in Florida (not of the old retiree variety) and their tales of having to keep all kitchen pantry items in sealed containers and still having to check for bugs before using just totally freaks me out.

Badly.

<img src="http://img6.exs.cx/img6/1079/spidertroopers.jpg">

TANKER!!

of course. She speads a lot of time down there. That's why she gets the premium pay! ;)

Um, dude, you were there....
This is the one that you were going to hold a dollar bill next to, but then freaked out because your camera flash was pissing it off, and it was getting ready to jump, bloodlust glowing in its eyes and fangs frothing with rage.... :evil2:

It could have easily spread it's legs across the palm of my hand. Those are bricks it's standing on.

Iam not afraid of much, nothing really bothers me. BUT spiders eight legged little freaks scare the hell out of me my blood pressure rises just looking at these pictures. I'm not kidding about that.

Especially the ones with hairy knuckles and bloodshot eyes. :eek:

TANKER!!

Awesome, Slothboy. :biglaugha

This is the one that you were going to hold a dollar bill next to, but then freaked out because your camera flash was pissing it off...

Hold a dollar bill next to it? I was handing over my money! That thing was threatening me!

While putting up hurricane shutters preparing for Frances to come ashore I had to work around this "little" beauty on the eave of my house. We have always called these golden orb spiders (right or wrong I don't know) but they are very aggressive so you simply leave them alone.



FD

PS...there were two of them that were still there after the first eyewall passed by (at least when I was looking for damage while we were in the eye) but they were gone when the backside eyewall came ashore....they could be in the next county or state by now with those winds.

Yup, that's one ugly ass, looking spider! It does look like a golden orb, I googled it and just looking at the pictures gives me the willies! According to the web site it's not considered dangerous but I think I'd stay away from it just the same, I hate spiders. Good picture FD!

Thanks 404! I just wish I knew where the @*&$@ spider was at...the one in the picture had a body about the size of your pinky down to two joints and was probably 4-5 inches across with the legs....you kinda wanna know where spiders that big are located at all times! Wish I had got that radio frequency collar installed on that sucker so I could track him/her. :eek:

I must admit I don't mind spiders that much but I also must admit I was looking for this one when I took my hurricane shutters down this afternoon....seen too many scifi movies I guess....

picture below is of nastly looking bug that LOOKS like mosquito but could not have been as it was 4 inches including those legs...this was up in CT in my previous yard.

FD