Got Arachnophobia?

[XGhozt 410]

 

 

WILLS POINT, Tex., Aug. 29 — Most spiders are solitary creatures. So the discovery of a vast web crawling with millions of spiders that is spreading across several acres of a North Texas park is causing a stir among scientists, and park visitors.

 

Sheets of web have encased several mature oak trees and are thick enough in places to block out the sun along a nature trail at Lake Tawakoni State Park, near this town about 50 miles east of Dallas.

 

The gossamer strands, slowly overtaking a lakefront peninsula, emit a fetid odor, perhaps from the dead insects entwined in the silk. The web whines with the sound of countless mosquitoes and flies trapped in its folds.

 

Allen Dean, a spider expert at Texas A&M University, has seen a lot of webs, but even he described this one as “rather spooky, kind of like Halloween.”

 

Mr. Dean and several other scientists said they had never seen a web of this size outside of the tropics, where the relatively few species of “social” spiders that build communal webs are most active.

 

Norman Horner, emeritus professor of biology at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Tex., was one of a number of spider experts to whom a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist sent online photos of the web. “It is amazing, absolutely amazing,” said Dr. Horner, who at first thought it an e-mail hoax.

 

The web may be a combined effort of social cobweb spiders. But their large communal webs generally take years to build, experts say, and this web was formed in just a few months.

 

Or it could be a striking example of what is known as ballooning, in which lightweight spiders throw out silk filaments to ride the air currents. Five years ago, in just that way, a mass dispersal of millions of tiny spiders covered 60 acres of clover field in British Columbia with thick webbing.

 

Mike Quinn, the state biologist who distributed the online photos, and who runs a Web site about Texas invertebrates, plans to drive to the park from Central Texas on Friday in an effort to get some answers by collecting samples.

 

Record-breaking rains that flooded Texas earlier this summer inspired outbreaks of crickets and “webworms,” the caterpillar larvae of the white moth. Mr. Quinn said the rains might have something to do with the web, too.

 

“You’d have to get a lot of spiders together and feed them a whole lot of food to make a web that big,” he said.

 

Whatever caused the vast web, the sight of it has inspired both awe and revulsion.

 

“It’s beautiful,” said the park’s superintendent, Donna Garde.

 

Freddie Gowin disagrees. It was Mr. Gowin, a maintenance worker at the park, who discovered the web this month when, taking advantage of some of the first dry weather, he mowed the area around the nature trail.

 

“I don’t think there’s anything pretty about it,” he said, though “it’s certainly unusual.”

 

When Mr. Gowin drives the power mower through the area, webbing wraps across his bare face, causing him to slap at spiders, real or imagined, crawling on his skin.

 

The park’s staff says that while the web has killed some leaves, it should not hurt the trees.

 

The spiders are “spreading out for sure,” Mr. Gowin said, pointing out cedars that appeared to have a dusting of snow. “They’re going to take over this whole point.”

 

The staff expects the web to last until colder weather this fall, when the spiders begin dying off.

 

For now the concern is to defend this marvel from teenagers who might take a stick and knock it all down, or little boys wanting to push their little sisters into it.

 

“We’ll try to protect it, with what little staff we have,” said Ms. Garde, the superintendent. “I’ll use the web-of-life analogy. If you break one part of the web, it affects us all.”

 

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/31/us/31spi...&ei=5087%0A

[HG-Bounder-X 121]

That is sweet.

Now wait until the spiders get that big ;) :D

[aNiMe_FrEaK_ 40]

That's crazy, that web is amazing.... o.o

[Xthar 136]

Spiders making a web that big in just that amount of time? THIS IS MADDNESS!

[Azqato 503]

Holy Shit.

[Aimcrack 40]

If I somehow see a spider get bigger than half the size of me.. I'm moving to the moon.

[mr.pockets 0]

thats amazing, death trap for all other bugs.

[ThaHoov 0]

 

Check Out that Spider!

[HG-Bounder-X 121]

holy shit...

I'm never going to Florida

[ThaHoov 0]

 

Man there are so many ugly bugs! LOL

 

Everyone loves the Bird Eating Spider. (for those that don't know, that is what it is called)

Edited September 1, 2007 by ThaHoov

[XGhozt 410]

I used to own a tarantula, my cat killed it. I was too scared to even touch it!

Did you know they can grow back their legs? o.o

[ThaHoov 0]

Actually I did know that. It's creepy.

 

 

Not a spider, but still pretty sick

 

It is called a Vinegaroon

[aNiMe_FrEaK_ 40]

Ive heard of those things apparently when they bite you or pinch you you get the taste of vinegar in your mouth i think they have them out here where i live o.o

[ThaHoov 0]

Well, I am glad I have never seen one LOL.

[Major Zhuinden 128]

That's pretty cool. Actually I thought I don't have arachnophobia anymore... Well, if I met that spider on that Central Florida pic, I'm sure I would be scared like hell. O.O

[XGhozt 410]

I hate spiders, I'd run away and be like the Chinese when godzilla came storming in!

[aNiMe_FrEaK_ 40]

 

Check Out that Spider!

 

Since you all seem scared as shit of this spider heres some info about it.

 

The Brazilian wandering spider (Phoneutria spp.), also called the banana spider, is an aggressive and highly venomous spider named as such because it was first discovered in Brazil, though this genus is known to exist elsewhere in South and Central America. The Brazilian wandering spider can grow to have a leg span of up to 4-5 inches. Bites from these spiders may result in only a couple of painful pinpricks to full-blown envenomation. In either case, people bitten by a Phoneutria or any Ctenid should seek immediate emergency treatment as the venom is possibly life threatening.

 

And apparently you have a pretty damn good reason to be, but I don't think its that common in north america.

Edited September 1, 2007 by aNiMe_FrEaK_

[Ruler of War 169]

O RLY I think i got its cousin right out side my damn window ill take a pic

 

but yea i saw this on the news, i was amazed when they said it was by what people in my town call "the gater lake" lol

 

 

but yea ill have that pic of 1 that looks like that 1 in the pic above my post

 

 

 

 

yea this was out side my window i took the pic from inside the house so u can see his beautiful face (in large the pic it looks alot better in larged

[ViperSRT3g 224]

Did you know, that if you agitate a Tarantula, it can rub it's two hind legs together releasing the tiny hairs on it's legs. If these hairs get into your eyes, you can go permanently blind.

[Ruler of War 169]

ohhh shit son that would suck like a mother fucker... it seems spiders are alot more uhhh "deadly" than i thought...

[dragoonerzerg 0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daddy_longlegs

 

What about the Daddy Long Legs? I have these everywhere in my house. One time, i got an old tank and i gathered

as many Daddy Long Legs that i can find and put them in there.

 

A species of Daddy Long Legs have wings like a mosquito so they can fly and imitate a mosquito.

 

Daddy Long Legs are in fact THE WORLDS MOST VENOMOUS SPIDERS WITH VENOM SO POWERFUL in can kill an infant in at least 1 min. However, their fangs are to small to penetrate thick flesh like the human's. lol

 

Some species have legs very long. VERY LONG! That gives them advantages.

 

http://www.scientificameriken.com/yr4/daddy2.gif

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview...egs_feeding.jpg

 

Those are some pictures

[Xthar 136]

Ruler, that is not true. It was proven that they do not have as much venom as a black widow spider (The most venomest in the world). It was proven its not true on mythbusters.

 

black widow:

[dragoonerzerg 0]

Ruler, that is not true. It was proven that they do not have as much venom as a black widow spider (The most venomest in the world). It was proven its not true on mythbusters.

 

black widow:

yeah sorry about that. I just figured that out too 5 min. ago. Wow those church kids must be complete dumbasses

[aNiMe_FrEaK_ 40]

yeah sorry about that. I just figured that out too 5 min. ago. Wow those church kids must be complete dumbasses

 

Thats pretty much saying your one too for believing them >.>

[Xthar 136]

This is the serious board moron, No flaming