quote:

This is your creepy-crawly warning. Read on at your own risk.

A zoo in Australia has acquired what officials there say is the largest funnel web spider they've ever seen.

Measuring in at 8 centimeters (a little more than 3 inches), the so-called megaspider possesses a potentially deadly bite with fangs strong enough to pierce through a human fingernail.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/17...web-spider-antivenom

I rather like spiders, but ...

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
I rather like spiders, but ...

Me too! Esp. when they look like this:



But part of what allows me to view spiders as harmless is knowing that most spiders can't actually bite hard enough to do any damage to humans (let alone the fact that they generally don't want to bite us).

But this "bite through a human fingernail" business??

Um, no. Just no.

From what I’ve read I’d say that pretty much everything in Australia wants to kill you.

https://www.australiangeograph...-animals-the-top-30/ 30 Australian dangerous Aussie critters

Well there is always ...

The Brazilian Wandering Spider

We became familiar with some of the hazards when we moved into our rented house north of Sydney in 1980.

On entering the kitchen, we saw a large poster on the bulletin board of various dangerous spiders. When we opened the broom closet, there was another spider chart on the inside of the door. The most dangerous was the Sydney funnel web spider and it wasn't until the next year that an antivenom for its toxin was developed. Another was the red back, a small, shiny black spider with a red marking that looked like an hourglass on its abdomen. I used to find those on the underside of things outdoors like the children's swings. You learned not to unwittingly place your hands and such in places that you hadn't looked at first.

While we were moving in and unpacking, I heard a sudden intake of breath by my wife at the sliding door from the house to the back yard. Going to investigate, I found her face to face with a frilled lizard, another poisonous animal. They were about three feet apart, with her in the kitchen and the lizard atop a small wall across from the door, each of them too frightened to move. I slid the door shut and the lizard scurried away.

One morning, I was taking a shower when I saw something moving on the shower wall. I was nearly blind without my glasses, but I slipped out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and proceeded to wack a wolf spider that was easily over three inches across into submission. That weekend, I went to the hardware store and bought kits to make screens for all the windows that opened in the house.

Over time, we grew to be aware of where hazards might lurk and took some care to avoid them. Overall, the odds of dying in a traffic accident or even being struck by lightning were undoubtedly greater, but I don't play in streets or stand under trees in a thunderstorm either.

Big Al