Reason # 302 why I hate this time of year (Jim and Larry test their theories) Arachnophiles come on in! Arachnophobes, beware,

[Susan]

Is all of this just a dream?

[Félix]

::looks around and blinks::

[Susan]

::rubs eyes::

[evie]

Phil wrote: "Does it lay eggs inside the paralyzed spider? Mrs. Phil saw a wasp dragging a spider at our house a month or so ago, and someone at her work told her that's what happens."

Apparently it lays the eggs in, or close by the spider. When the young hatch they have a fresh meal waiting. The wasp I saw dragged the spider for about two metres, then left it and came back to it after ten minutes or so.

It reminds me of one of the 'Alien" movies I saw.

[[deleted user]]

I saw one of those wasps at my daughters softball match recently. Aren't they exquisit, and huge! At the time I wished I had my camera with me.

[Scout]

The only creature that gives me chills is a spider, but I'll still get a jar and capture one that's inside the house and take it outside - unless it's on me, and then I do the spider shake and smack.

[evie]

Autumn, it's my favourite season but there's lots of leaf litter about and that's just what the Red Back spider loves.

I have to sweep and sweep. Grrrr.

[[deleted user]]

I had the whole house sprayed Tuesday. Can't so spiders!

Any minute Belle is going I start bringing snakes in through the cat door. This will become a daily occurrence as soon as the babies are born. Usually she plays with them until they break, but they also often get away. I'm not askeert of snakes, but it is startling when they crawl out from under the washer/dryer/oven/fridge/dresser/your shoes in your closet at you unexpectedly...

[evie]

Snakes? Oh no that is really too scary.

My FIL sometimes gets the odd brown snake hanging about. Once there was one under the refrigerator.

[[deleted user]]

Evie, we don't live Down Under, there are no poisonous snakes here. We have some diamond back rattlers in central and eastern Oregon, but none here in the rainy northwestern part of the state. These are just little green or stripy garter snakes. I'm not even sure they have teeth. I just grab them with the "snake tongs" (a designated pair of salad tongs that live on my book shelves) and fling them back in the yard, broken or whole. They live or they die; circle of life.

[[deleted user]]

" The western rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis, is the most widely distributed rattlesnake in the western United States and Canada, and also the most variable in North America, with nine subspecies. It is also Oregon's only truly venomous snake. Two subspecies are found within Oregon's borders; C. v. oreganus, the Northern Pacific Rattlesnake, and C. v. lutosus, the Great Basin Rattlesnake. By studying the ecology of these potentially dangerous snakes I hope to demonstrate the wondrous diversity of these New World snakes that we threaten to eliminate as a result of unsubstantiated fear...

The western rattlesnake ranges from south-central British Columbia, southeastern Alberta, and southwestern Saskatchewan southeastward through the United States to extreme western Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, and south to northern Baja California and northern Mexico. Elevations occupied range from near sea level to over 12,000 ft. (Wright, and Wright 1947). In Oregon C. v. oreganus occurs east of the cascades and in valleys west of the Cascades south of Salem while C. v. lutosus occurs only in the southeastern corner of the state."

http://pages.uoregon.edu/titus/herp_o...

I am west of the Cascades, but north of Salem. Chaaaching! The no rattler zone. ;)

[evie]

EEK!

[[deleted user]]

This coming from the lady who lives where anything that can bit is likely to kill you!

I'm akeert of the funnel web spiders. Keeps me from really wanting to go to Australia. I fear the spider.

[Scout]

Saw a spider next to my chair yesterday. Went to get a jar with a lid, and when I came back, it was gone. Well, not really gone. It's in here somewhere. Creeping around.

[Félix]

They. Are. Everywhere.

[Sally, la reina]

This thread is icky.

[[deleted user]]

Not to be read before meals.

[Scout]

Or bed. Still haven't found that sucker.

[[deleted user]]

A spider wove a web in my car. It darted out right in front of me and scared the shit out of me. Otherwise, spiders don't bother me in the least. Their webs are intricate tapestries, so spiders are creative and clever in their own right.

I draw the line at tarantulas.

[Scout]

There's this big spider of a type I've not seen before in my back yard. I've destroyed its web twice, and this morning when I went to my car, I walked through a part of its web. Aarghh. It was just hanging there looking creepy. I'm afraid of spiders, but I can't bring myself to kill this guy.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

When I emerged from my home the other morning - or, I began to emerge - I was stopped in my tracks by a spider starting to build a web in the doorway. I darted under it and turned around to lock the deadbolt but suddenly there was the spider dropping down super fast on a thread toward my hand. I jumped back, it scooted back up the thread. I reached over to lock the door, it ran down the thread toward my hand. Finally I got a paper bag out of my bag and moved the spider's thread, with him or her hanging from it, and threw it. It landed on the ground and I could HEAR the spider running across the bag and away. I could hear its feet scratching on the paper.

[evie]

Spring has sprung, the wattle is in bloom, and we have had some really windy days this last week. We usually get this wind in the latter days of August. Mr evie's hayfever is peaking so he sneezes a lot. The guy in the apartment above us has hayfever, too. His wife told me.

Last night the two husbands were both sneezing. It sounded like a sneeze off!
Whoever runs out of sneezes first is the loser.