Millions of spiders in Australia

reply to post by markosity1973


Omg!!!! NOPE!!! Could never live there!!! Never visit.....UUGGHH...yuck....

reply to post by alienjuggalo


For the love of god.....................

reply to post by Kryties


Agreed - I have seen plenty BIGGER than my hand, When the husband gets home tonight I'll upload a photo off his phone of a monster one that dropped from the roller door at his work, it looks normal size, until you realise it's standing in the middle of a car park space, and it's actually effing huge. yuck yuck yuck.

and i'd introduce 'george' to the cover of a rolled up magazine of the bottom of my thong if I were you!

reply to post by bellagirl


Funny you should mention that.

True story...

I was in my friend's car - a passenger in the front seat and my friend was driving. It was an old Mazda 323 and a bit of a rust bucket. He was telling me how he had a huntsman in the car recently and how it scared the crap out of them as it fell from the visor or something. Anyway, as we were talking about it, lo and behold...the same huntsman pops out inside the car from the front window demisting vent!

It was like "oh hiiii guys, heard you were talking about me!"

We then proceeded to fashion all sorts of crude implements to extract him from the car. It was all quite funny but thankfully they are pretty harmless.

I also had one fall on my head when I was asleep once - it woke me up and I thought it was a moth or something. I then got bitten on the hand as I was removing it. So I hurled it onto the floor and turned the light on. It was then that I saw it was a huntsman and he was missing a few legs from it (thankfully not in my hair!). Lucky for him that I just captured him and threw him outside.

Funnel webs...now that would be a different story.

Tonatiuh
We can camp in a tent and not worry about that because we DON'T HAVE BEARS!

just drop bears, but we do not talk about them.

There have been no deaths from red-back bites since anti-venom became available in 1956
Anti-venom became available in 1980 and since then there have been no deaths from funnel-web bites

So there has been no deaths from spider bite in Australia for 33 years....

Since 1990 there has been 7 deaths by snakebite in Australia

31,940 people died from gun injuries in 2011 in the USA.... and you worry about spiders and snakes over here?

We got a lot of # that can kill you in the American southwest but Australia got us beat exponentially.. Between the horrifying spiders, venomous snakes, the stonefish and sharks, crocs, poisonous platypus (wtf?!!) it really makes me reconsider even visiting there.

It's a miracle you Aussies are alive at all!

SecTownKid
We got a lot of # that can kill you in the American southwest but Australia got us beat exponentially.. Between the horrifying spiders, venomous snakes, the stonefish and sharks, crocs, poisonous platypus (wtf?!!) it really makes me reconsider even visiting there.

It's a miracle you Aussies are alive at all!

Oh, come now!

I do not know the entire list but. You have:

Raging Grizzly Bears.
Rattle Snakes
Alligators
Wolves
Coyotes
Big Cats, (Well, medium ones anyway)
Scorpions.
Mad twits with guns.
CIA
NSA
Men in black.
Police.
TSA

It is a pretty big list. Those last five can be very vicious.

P

Oh, come now!

I do not know the entire list but. You have:

Raging Grizzly Bears.
Rattle Snakes
Alligators
Wolves
Coyotes
Big Cats, (Well, medium ones anyway)
Scorpions.
Mad twits with guns.
CIA
NSA
Men in black.
Police.
TSA

It is a pretty big list. Those last five can be very vicious.

P

edit on 16/12/2013 by pheonix358 because: (no reason given)

Yeah, those are most of the deadly things, but you forgot killer bees.

There are a bunch of other insect goodies here though that are mostly harmless yet can scare someone batcrap insane, like your huntsman there:

- Preying Mantis, which can get quite large,
- Palmetto bugs - basically giant flying cockroaches that have no control over where they are going,
- "Jerusalem Crickets", otherwise known as potato bugs, a large thing that once woke me up in the middle of the night because it was chewing a stale potato chip and making a loud racket doing so,
- Centipedes, some of which do have irritating bites,
- Fire ants.

Plenty of other irritating insects around, I bet you have a few down there but seeing any of these on my doorstep gets me pulling the shotgun out of the lurch. Yeah its overkill but I'm American :::shrugs shoulders:::

reply to post by Varhaard

Plenty of other irritating insects around, I bet you have a few down there but seeing any of these on my doorstep gets me pulling the shotgun out of the lurch. Yeah its overkill but I'm American :::shrugs shoulders:::

Yea, I usually go for the air rifle or the thong or perhaps a big book dropped from a height. Shot gun, nah mate.

LOL

P

Anyone got a clue on this dream influence!??



I am a hardened Aussie - who has travelled - but seriously, who lives with these?
Does Mortein work? Or do you kill them with fire?

I need to know ...

Ed: Country of origin would be cool. I have not seen these on bug spray cans that I can recall. Lol !

bellagirl
lol the spider in your picture is harmless. we all have those in our houses. there called a huntsman spider. its more scary when you are in your car and one pops out.

I had one drop on my shoulder while driving once. Wasn't as big as that one, but it was big enough for me to hear it land.
I have no fear whatsoever of snakes, but when there is a huntsman in the house, it's the wife's job to remove it (for some reason she doesn't mind them and calls me a wuss). There's actually one near my fridge right now so I'm waiting for her to get home...

randyvs
Eight Legged Freaks !

Fortunately, it was embedded in my subconscious early in that movie that it was fiction.

A truck driver transporting unsecured, dangerous goods who swerves for a rabbit? Come on...

I dislike spiders, but at least they're slightly less puke-inducing than roaches.

I remember seeing a very similar story when I was a kid about a town in Australia that had been overrun with spiders, it was on John Cravens news round if any Brits remember that.

Anyway I didn't like spiders at all, and that night when I went to bed it was all I could think about and I had trouble getting to sleep.

Wouldn't you just know it that as I was just nodding off and my eyes were starting to close I saw something in the darkness shoot across my bed covers, it made me jump out of bed screaming like a banshee, my heart pounding away while I went to turn on the lights, and when I had a look there was indeed the biggest fattest spider I'd ever seen crawling around my bed covers.

It still makes me shiver, I hate them.

You know odd thing is i really dislike spiders but if they respect the
symbiosis then so do i, i refrain from war on outdoor spiders all together
unless they are black widows which garner a no mercy approach.

I have a small colony of non venomous spiders that live in one of my
windows sills, they seem to mind their own business and keep most
of the insects in check.

Y'all do make a good point on the long list of things we do have here
to worry about, i honestly don't worry too much about a gun toting
psycho where i live but we rarely see that here, we have a super
low murder rate in my little town and the cops are still generally friendly.

However i do have, Wood bees, Wasps of about 4 different verities,
those wasps are evil buggers too, i do not tolerate them very
well as they are aggressive. We have, i think, 3 venomous snake
species common to my area, Cotton mouth being the most common.
We also have black bears which i stated previously and mountain lions
have been making a bit of a show, coyotes and red wolves are
indigenous to this area as well but tend to stay out of sight.

We have Copper head snakes as well, brown recluse spiders are quite
common as are black widows, luckily not near my house. Ironically
the thing i fear more than most of those would be deer ticks, those
are extremely common and can be impossible to see, they can give
you lime disease which is just wrong.

But to be honest i don't lose sleep over those things as they are just
part of life, i may not enjoy the pests but i do know they serve their
purpose as we all do to the food chain.

The coyotes the other night were beautiful, our pup loves to listen
to them, she doesn't really know what to make of it, just listens and
looks at us lol

bellagirl
reply to post by DeadSeraph

 

lol the spider in your picture is harmless. we all have those in our houses. there called a huntsman spider. its more scary when you are in your car and one pops out.

I was riding my Hog one morning to work when a spider crawled across the inside of my helmet. I did manage to get him without stopping.

Varhaard

There are a bunch of other insect goodies here though that are mostly harmless yet can scare someone batcrap insane, like your huntsman there:

- Preying Mantis, which can get quite large,

We get massive Preying Mantises here is Oz. They are actually fascinating creatures, I love watching their heads turn to follow you as you walk past them.

- Palmetto bugs - basically giant flying cockroaches that have no control over where they are going,

Every Christmas Australia gets invaded by Christmas Beetles which are totally harmless but in country areas particularly they can get really big, so much so that I call them B52 Bombers for the sound their wings make as they fly around smashing into random things lol

We get Earwigs here too, and Ive seen them grow as long and thick as a large mans middle finger. When I was a kid we had a plague of them one night, millions of them got into the house and it took hours of spraying and vacuuming to get rid of them before we could go to bed .

hellobruce

There have been no deaths from red-back bites since anti-venom became available in 1956
Anti-venom became available in 1980 and since then there have been no deaths from funnel-web bites

So there has been no deaths from spider bite in Australia for 33 years....

Maybe not directly but the only time I have ever involuntarily screamed was meeting a huntsman sitting on my car wing as I walked into the garage. And it was as big as my hand and much hairier.

My wife (I was still traumatized) tried to hose him off but even at full bore from about 2 foot he stood his ground. A broom forced him into the C Pillar vent which meant I couldn't use the car till he re-appeared, 3 days later on the wing again. The ready sellotaped paper vent cover was slapped on and this time a broom persuaded him away, although even then he jumped at the broom.

If I would have been driving and felt something brush my neck and looked in the rear mirror and seen him sitting there not sure the steering wheel would have hands on it for a while.

Managed to also get bitten on the hand by a redback when gardening - assume it was only a small spider or he just nicked me as got away without needing the anti-venom, just hurt like hell and swelled up like a balloon !

Then again I am only a pom and as has been said a true dinky-di would put a huntsman in the garage to keep the other spiders out.

reply to post by NuclearPaul

A truck driver transporting unsecured, dangerous goods who swerves for a rabbit? Come on...

My God, I didn't even notice that. That's the most incrediBly B spoof gimick
cameo I've ever seen. Thanks for catching that. That's priceless.

Kryties

Varhaard

There are a bunch of other insect goodies here though that are mostly harmless yet can scare someone batcrap insane, like your huntsman there:

- Preying Mantis, which can get quite large,

We get massive Preying Mantises here is Oz. They are actually fascinating creatures, I love watching their heads turn to follow you as you walk past them.

- Palmetto bugs - basically giant flying cockroaches that have no control over where they are going,

Every Christmas Australia gets invaded by Christmas Beetles which are totally harmless but in country areas particularly they can get really big, so much so that I call them B52 Bombers for the sound their wings make as they fly around smashing into random things lol

We get Earwigs here too, and Ive seen them grow as long and thick as a large mans middle finger. When I was a kid we had a plague of them one night, millions of them got into the house and it took hours of spraying and vacuuming to get rid of them before we could go to bed .

Oh...my...gawd... How the hell do you people live there!? Giant house spiders the size of a mans hand, fields of spider webs, Bird sized moths, giant cockroaches and beetles, and Earwigs the size of a middle finger infesting houses!?

Crocodiles and snakes I can deal with. But not that. Nope. Never.