Creepy spider!

Quote fixed. Amazing as well that you can get such resemblance all the way up at the order level.

Ranger Rick wrote:
93_confirmed wrote:

This bird-eating tarantula will give you nightmares

It's OK, I'm a human, not a bird.

That GIF leaves out the second zoom out which reveals a tarantula the size of a kiddie pool inside a kiddie pool.

thrawn82 wrote:

As a kid i lived in NM, and spent a lot of time at my Uncles place in San Antonio Texas. the soft silty sand is super good for ant lions, they were all over, and as kids we would dig them out to see what they looked like and the shape of that think jumped out at me.

I saw the pits many times as a child in Delaware, but never dug them up for fear of being bit by that crazy looking maw.

I probably saw a dozen or so mantises in real life, too. They are beautiful creatures.

thrawn82 wrote:

Quote fixed. Amazing as well that you can get such resemblance all the way up at the order level.

This always blew my mind in entomology courses. For the taxonomy class, we stayed at the family level but started at the order. The sheer variety in Diptera (Flies) and Coleoptera (Beetles) is astounding! Beetles alone have over 400,000 distinct species.

Form follows function, eh? AKA convergent evolution.

You’re not going to pull out the JBS Haldane quote?

You know... when I made this thread on a whim, I never expected it to get even remotely close to 100 pages, and I certainly didn't expect it to be this entertaining.

Almost TEN years ago!

PurEvil wrote:

You know... when I made this thread on a whim, I never expected it to get even remotely close to 100 pages, and I certainly didn't expect it to be this entertaining.

When the spiders take over your cocooning shall be swift and mercyful.

How could anyone hate these sweeties?
(might be fake. )

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/g7iVji7.gif)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/NjNd7VG.jpg)

This does nothing to debunk the popular conception of Australia as a death trap.

muraii wrote:

This does nothing to debunk the popular conception of Australia as a death trap.

You can only debunk things that are false?

Here's the video for the cute spider:
https://laughingsquid.com/lucas-the-...

Tanglebones wrote:

Here's the video for the cute spider:
https://laughingsquid.com/lucas-the-...

IMAGE(http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/4c/4c85e79638200ddff1286e5fb2357c1ca7dc6832bfeaad7cea46dea10d514c2e.jpg)

Here's a creepy half-spider for you. Spoilered, for your mental health and well-being.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/MY8TQ5C.gif)

Some of these are already in this thread but what the heck, For my new friend BloodyElectric. All photos by me. I have so many more! I want to post them all!!!

Nice Orb Weaver at our cottage in Quebec
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/qDTxxvh.jpg)

Beautiful big phiddipus at the same cottage
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/wDzmsYN.png)

euophrys monadnock also at teh cottage
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/3G5XjVE.jpg)

This common wolf was in the bathroom in my basement
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/CYoDDDn.jpg)

One of my faves, This little jumper is sitting on my fingernail.
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/BF2MENW.png)

Those pictures are excellent! Great quality. What camera do you use?

BloodyElectric wrote:

Those pictures are excellent! Great quality. What camera do you use?

The camera varied for those shots. At the time I was using a Nikon D90 with a 90MM macro, sometimes on extension tubes.

Now I shoot with an Olympus OMd EM5 Mk2 with a 60MM macro, also sometimes with extension tubes.

I think these two were shot with the new camera
This guy made a home in a yard waste bag
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/bSecsnT.jpg)

This one was at a rented cottage. I'd never seen chelicerae as big as these on a jumping spider!
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/nkK57GH.jpg)

farley3k wrote:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/NjNd7VG.jpg)

Brazilian Wandering Spider

Priapism... then death!

EDIT: To remove previous failed attempt at humour.

There’s a great episode of a podcast called Hound Tall with Moshe Kasher, titled “Buggin Out! - Extreme Entomolgy and the Amazon”. He has Phil Torres on, who spent years in the rainforests. He talks about being terrified of Brazilian wandering spiders for exactly that reason.
It’s a great episode and I highly recommend it! It’s funny and informative.

Also, the issue with spider bites is that most are misdiagnosed. Unless the person bit has the spider that bit them, there’s no solid way of telling if it was an actual spider bite. I forget the statistic but a good majority of what people think are Brown Recluse bites, in particular, actually end up being Staph infections.

Yeah, but how do you know the brown recluse wasn't carrying around little packets of staph bacteria to season the bites of its victims?

BadKen wrote:

Yeah, but how do you know the brown recluse wasn't carrying around little packets of staph bacteria to season the bites of its victims?

Here have something terrifying

Yup! Kissing bugs. Aptly named due to the fact that it typically bites you on/around the lips. That’s where it’s most tender, mmmm

BloodyElectric wrote:

Yup! Kissing bugs. Aptly named due to the fact that it typically bites you on/around the lips. That’s where it’s most tender, mmmm

Spent my high school years in the Panama Canal Zone. Chagas disease is a big deal there, in fact its named for a forest in the country. We got lots of in school public service stuff about it.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/hwt4VRK.png)

I remember that ad!

Don't know if this bit of spiders+animation has come across this page before:

I know what to get my Stantee now!

If spiders were organized....

Humans beware: if the world’s present population of spiders ever get organized, they could eat us all in just 12 months.

That’s the shock new finding from a piece of research that is set to give everyone nightmares.