MORE under the radar people...they do FLY LOW and Collect Dough...who knew?

Whew, Michael, that's a scary looking spider! I'm amazed that you can just sit & WATCH those things! When I see them or anything like them...I'm running for them! ~lol~ Ok, when I clicked your link, I don't want to get this conversation too far outta whack, BUT I saw something closely resembling my mother in law there. I couldn't resist giving you the link, so you could see her too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phidippus_mystaceus

Bea,

Thanks for kidding around.

I was at the dinner table once and the person opposite me stood up away from the table and pointed at my chair. I looked over my shoulder to see a Huntsman walking up the side of the chair towards my shoulder. I calmly just rose up, got a newspaper, let it crawl onto it then carried it outside. Needless to say, Spiders don't phase me.

And they wouldn't want to. One time, while doing some Night Beach Fishing, it started to rain. So me and my fishing buddy hightailed it into some nearby shrubs to take cover. After a minute my buddy asks for the torch. I give it to him. He turns it on and we discover there are spiders Everywhere. Suspended between webs between the branches of the shrubs.

We looked around and we couldn't see a way out of the shrubs without going through multiple webs and spiders. So we laid flat and squirmed out. That was... interesting

The jumping spiders are usually around the size of a grain of rice - unlike a Huntsman which can have a leg span as big as the open end of a mug. Although some Jumper's are larger.

I once watched a small spider weave a web from scratch over 45 minutes. Then it rained and wrecked the web. After the rain the spider started all over again. Fascinating.

Michael Ross
www.hotsheets.info - check it out.

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by MichaelRoss

Gordon,

Thanks for mentioning Spiders.

Down here in Oz we have a Plethora of Huntsman and they can be darn fast when you try to Get them.

Here's a GREAT picture of a huntsman spider...

WARNING: If you're squeamish about big spiders, DON'T click on the following link!

Huntsman - Too Big To Hide!

Cheers

Dien

P.S. I love spiders. I used to catch them as a kid, keep them in jars for a while, and feed them insects. Then I'd let them go after a day or two... Huntsman spiders look ferocious, but they look more fierce than they actually are...

Dien,
My heart is POUNDING. Seriously!! ~lol!~
I would have been OUT of there & probably would have moved OUT.

Michael, you must be very brave to do that, esp if the spider was THAT big!

But I do see the wisdom and patience we can obviously learn from the little spider building his web. It's like when we are children, we are like rubber & can bounce back from seemingly almost anything, but then as we grow older, we lose that "elasticity" somehow...why? I don't know, but I am striving to gain some of that back!

Thanks for sharing, this is the last forum I thought we'd be talking about this in, but it sure has been an interesting thread!

Bea