If you’re arachnophobic, don’t look below the fold, and don’t play the movie. I’m warning you!
I think they’re adorable.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
If you’re arachnophobic, don’t look below the fold, and don’t play the movie. I’m warning you!
I think they’re adorable.
This is what the wall’s about, isn’t it?
Okay, I’m on board.
Okay, also for Halloween, and also for sanity-based avoidance: Gergle trypophobia.
Awesome! Lots of Harvestmen here, but I’ve never seen that. I’ll keep an eye out.
I’ve always been fond of daddy-long-legs. But then, I rather liker spiders overall. I used to keep one on the bedpost when I was a teenager.
No no no, the spider was keeping — well, trying to keep — you in the bed. This is why you kept finding yourself covered in fine sticky threads when waking up. It(the spider) probably had delusions of Shelob, or possibly Ungoliant.
One of my favorite books as a young Cuttlefish was “Be Nice To Spiders”; I am very fortunate that it colored my perception of crawly things to this day.
Rabbits, on the other hand… *shudder*
I’ve been finding a cavalcade of overlarge spiders in my bed at night.
I shouldn’t have to deal with this in England.
My gf sent me a video of a Heteropoda venatoria in her house in Japan, in which she puts her hand right next to it for scale, and then touches its leg and it sprints across the wall. My first reaction as a layperson was of course OMGKILLITWITHFIRE, then she explained that there are like 3 of them in that house and they keep pests away, and she and her mom had it walk on their faces while sleeping and didn’t mind. So I went googling for H. Venatoria and now I’m pretty impressed with the Huntsman spiders.
Then I see this video, and one of the other related videos is this one in which some dummy in Australia really hates these spiders and apparently considers them pests and hunts them first-person-shooter style with a vacuum cleaner. Then adding insult to injury, he links to another video in which a big wasp is having a Huntsman for lunch, and praises it. Aren’t wasps more dangerous to humans in general than spiders?
Not available n my country :( Does anyone have another link?
Callinectes:
Jumpers! I have similar inhabiting my bedroom, I always know when there’s a new one, because they run across my face. The ones who have been around for a while, we have a deal – they run around me, and I don’t accidentally squish them in my sleep. We have a little chat when they first arrive.
Ohhh maaaaan, twice in my apartment up in La Sierra Gorda of central Mexico I have crushed a good-sized spider only to see several hundred itta-bitty ones scatter out. It’s one of the worst feeling, turning one into 250, there by your sink or bed.
Heehee awww. They’re like real-life soot sprites!
I really shouldn’t have watched that. I have something like PTSD from spiders attacking me in my bed and waking me up as a child. I leave them alone and let them live in my house as long as they and their webs aren’t a nuisance, but I can get panic attacks from seeing them. Definitely nothing to compare to people with actual PTSD, of course. It’s very minor.
I am thoroughly fascinated by spiders, though, even with my visceral reaction to them.They are wonderful predators and everything. I just don’t like them near me.
They’re Daddy-long-legs, Jim, but not as we know them. Had me worried back there, as in Britain the name “daddy longlegs” refers to the crane fly – different genus, indeed different order. Harmless, but urban legends about their (non-existent) bite persist.
@Callinectes, that’s a house spider: genus Tegenaria, according to a guide to British spiders. Yours is not fully grown yet. They’re all over the place in Britain. I stopped minding them a long time ago.
Harvestmen are not true spiders.
@7 not going to try and look at your links ,about 20 years ago i decided to watch tv in bed about 2 am .
I turned my head to find a large house spider on my pillow to the left of my head ,after leaping 4 ft in the air from a lying position
and searching through the be linen i found and murdered it .
After my heart beat had had returned to normal i was making the bed up,heard a little scratching sound .
There was another larger f****** spider on a cardboard box on top of the wardrobe ,the cardboard box was acting like an echo chamber .
Managed to knock it to the floor where i dropped one of my old Open University books on it .
Finally found a use for Gombrichs Art And Illusion .
@15 Hi ,not going to look Tegenaria up there might be a photo ,are they the large house spiders you find in the sink ?.
Those are the ones that scare the crap out of me ,also the orange and brown spiders ,they prey on Wood Lice .
The only Spiders i don’t mind are the little Zebra spiders and the Cave Spiders you find indoors ,i read somewhere they eat the large house spiders ,don’t see how that is possible .
Harvestmen (the UK name for these critters) are totally harmless to humans, so it doesn’t bother me over much. As a rule; if it can’t hurt me, I am not overly concerned. Interesting? Most certainly. Creepy? Nope.
We had little yellow-orange spiders doing that. Those as well as these spiders are harmless, so why did the assholes have to throw the bundle on the ground, just for a YT video? What a bunch of frikkin losers.
=8(-DX