8-Legged Nightmares? The World's 3 Deadliest Spiders, and More Pics

So glad I don't live in Australia, as I can't catch any of those buggers bigger than a quarter.

Seeing as we're on the topic of spiders - I have a "repeat offender" wolf spider that has made multiple appearances in my apartment last year. How could I tell she was the same spider? One of her legs was damaged, so she had a limp.

First time I caught it - the spider was very aggressive; it didn't want to go in the cup at all. Second time, it saw me coming and went off into a corner. Third time, it didn't even fight me - if the spider could have talked, it would have said "really? You're throwing me outside...again? Oh fine, I give up".

-fossilera

reply to post by fossilera


I would never have been putting it in a cup, I would have smashed it with a very hard, big book!

reply to post by bobs_uruncle


Geeze!!

The day I see a spider as big as a plate is the day someone finds me on the floor in a dead faint!

sled735
reply to post by bobs_uruncle

 

Geeze!!

The day I see a spider as big as a plate is the day someone finds me on the floor in a dead faint!

My wife was bitten by a wall spider at the Doena Motel on the Moz border when I was at a late meeting with our site manager. It was a smaller one we figure, maybe 5 or 6", she hived up and got a very dry mouth but faired ok.

There were some pretty big spiders there. We were out one moonlit night with a ranger and other guests on safari at Tshukudu and the ranger pointed out a Red Roman. It's a large bodied spider with a body about 4 to 6" long and 1.5 to 2" in diameter but had short legs. They follow you in your shadow on moonlit nights and bite your feet and ankles, but they won't bite you if they are in the light. So when the ranger saw it following someone, he moved them out of the way so it was in the moonlight and held it in his hand. Ugly looking things.

Another time, we went towards Kruger Park during the day in jeeps and had to pass through a thorn bush field with huge webs that were strung between scattered trees that were about 30 feet apart. The ranger called the spiders "bird catchers," I thought he meant the webs because of their size and then I saw the spiders. Now they were really big. They were 6 to 10 feet over our heads and I would have to say leg to leg about 12 to 14". My wife damn near shat a cookie when she saw those, good thing she didn't scream though because we had a lioness following the jeep and at any given time it was between 5 and 15 feet behind us (and it was an open jeep). A scream would have probably agitated it and it might have attacked, then I would have had to think quick and decide whether to shoot the lioness or let it have the wife. It would have been hard decision lol.

Yeah, we had a lot of fun down there ;-)

Cheers - Dave

I love this thread! Congratulations - it made me log on and post something for the first time in ages!

Behold - my Arachnid nightmare! The Solifugae...



Much like a spider with bits of a scorpion thrown in, these little scary buggers are very prevalent in the hot arid part of South Africa where I live. They grow to between 10 and 15 cm in size, and have the nasty habit of charging straight for a person's shadow at night. Nothing scares the living daylights out of me such as the likes of this horrible-looking thing galloping at full throttle for my feet (their top speed is about 18 km. per hour - I haven't yet tried to outrun them).

They also like charging head-first into fires, and will do so every time we go camping. Nothing like the flash, crackling sound and associated smell of char-grilled solifugae.

Old Afrikaans lore has provided this creature with the alternate name of 'Die Haarkapster' aka 'The Hairdresser', as they will reportedly sneek up on a sleeping person and relieve them of some of their hair - after these little blighters have reportedly clipped off some human hair, they will line their nests with it so that their devilish spawn can be raised in a nice and cozy (and slightly apple-smelling) environment. A story which I have been unable to verify - but I do usually sleep with towels over my head when we go camping just in case.

I swear I've seen one in the middle of a road with its fifth pair of legs raised up in the air - running like lightning trying to catch low-sweeping birds. I swear it - I wasn't dreaming

Spiders are evil.

Did you know: Theres a type of spider (Crab Spider) that decapitates ants and wears them for a hat to sneak into the ant nest to kill more ants?

Thats bloody messed up, damn nature! YOU SCARY!

Great thread!
I don't like spiders but I'm not afraid of them. When I was a teenager I had this daddy long legs on a window by my bed and I never let anybody touched it.......he was, sort of, my pet and I called him Filiberto (lol).

I once held a Tarantula in my hand.....oooohhhh that was so weird...such weird sensation that I couldn't describe......a fuzzy feeling, like being touched by feathers.

I want to add this picture now and ask you all: aren't baby spiders cute?

sled735
Here is a Grand Daddy Long Legs.
We used to play with these when I was young. They are probably outnumber any type I see around here. (That doesn't mean there aren't more of the others, I just don't see them as often.)
I can still pick one up by the leg and throw it off the porch when I see one. It's the only one that doesn't scare me. Why, I'll never know, because they can bite!
They have no poison or venom that will harm a human being. They do have a very mild venom but it's for their insect prey.

edit on 4/11/2014 by sled735 because: (no reason given)

A daddy long legs is not a spider it's a harvestman and they don't have venom.

reply to post by shimmeringsilver73


That picture made me shiver all over!!
Thanks for posting and letting us know about these hair-stealing stalkers! Interesting!

Biigs
Spiders are evil.

Did you know: Theres a type of spider (Crab Spider) that decapitates ants and wears them for a hat to sneak into the ant nest to kill more ants?

Thats bloody messed up, damn nature! YOU SCARY!

No, I didn't know that! Clever little buggers, aren't they?!

bobs_uruncle

Another time, we went towards Kruger Park during the day in jeeps and had to pass through a thorn bush field with huge webs that were strung between scattered trees that were about 30 feet apart. The ranger called the spiders "bird catchers," I thought he meant the webs because of their size and then I saw the spiders. Now they were really big. They were 6 to 10 feet over our heads and I would have to say leg to leg about 12 to 14". My wife damn near shat a cookie when she saw those, good thing she didn't scream though because we had a lioness following the jeep and at any given time it was between 5 and 15 feet behind us (and it was an open jeep). A scream would have probably agitated it and it might have attacked, then I would have had to think quick and decide whether to shoot the lioness or let it have the wife. It would have been hard decision lol.

Yeah, we had a lot of fun down there ;-)

Are you kidding me?! Wow! That's a BIG spider!
Lots of spiders where you were!

I think I'll just stay at home.

reply to post by Agartha

I want to add this picture now and ask you all: aren't baby spiders cute?

Ha,Ha! "Cute" is not a description I would use for a spider, but if I were it's mother, I might say that.

sled735
Clever little buggers, aren't they?!

Clever yes, but devious, evil, murdering masterminds of nature, think about the spider web. Its pretty much the most complex method to catch prey in nature. BAM spider strikes again. Oh and lets add some venom and hatching hundreds of little evil bastards too.

I like the spiders in my country, they cant hurt me and they catch flys and other bugs in my house. So on the whole [in my country only] im actually okay with them.

Now Australia, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel to the no way. Hotels only for me, camping in Australia is just about the scarest thing i can think of outside Africa and its lions and stuff.

reply to post by yorkshirelad


According to this article on spiders, the Grand Daddy Long Legs comes in two groups.
I posted the one that is classified as a spider.
crazyhorsesghost.hubpages.com...

in case you don't know there are two distinct arthropod groups that the name Grand Daddy Long Legs is applied to. One is the cellar spider which is in the photo above

It also says they have a very small amount of venom that can kill their insect prey.

reply to post by Biigs

Theres a type of spider (Crab Spider) that decapitates ants and wears them for a hat to sneak into the ant nest to kill more ants?

I would not have minded having a couple of these visit when we first moved here! It cost us a pretty penny to get the carpenter ants taken care of!
There are way too many ants of all kinds that seem partial to our home.
Spider/ant? Hmmm........Okay, ant.

reply to post by Biigs


We had a HUGE black and yellow spider that spun a web in the top corner of our porch a few years ago. We didn't kill it because it was so fascinating to sit and watch it spin it's web, then catch it's prey. It was the biggest, and prettiest (if you can call them pretty) spider I had ever seen around here! I haven't seen one like it since.

It looked similar to this one.

reply to post by nugget1


We have ants too. We live next to the woods.
The only way I can keep them out of my kitchen is to find the nest in the ground and pour gas down it.
I hate to do that, but they get in my food and crawl all over the cabinets, and it drives me crazy!!!

Night Star
reply to post by fossilera

 

I would never have been putting it in a cup, I would have smashed it with a very hard, big book!

LOL!! You and me both, sister!

reply to post by fossilera


LOL. That was funny.

Here's a good one for the arachnaphobes !
The guy has his hand in water so the spiders won't crawl up his arm.