Pages

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Something to give you nightmares...

Dynamo came running in to me while I was making dinner this evening shouting, “Mum, Mum, come and look at the spider with a million babies on its back!”

I thought it would be typical Dynamo exaggeration – a spider with maybe one or two of its young. I wasn’t prepared for this creature from a nightmare. It just had to have its picture taken.


I’m not fond of these spiders. They’re called Wolf Spiders (or 'Wolfies') and though they’re not particularly poisonous, their bites do pack quite a wallop. I got bitten by a small one once and the lump on my finger itched for months (serves me right for gardening without gloves). They live in the ground and under anything they can find and if you go out at night with a torch you can see their eyes shining as two tiny blue lights every few feet, as they sit in the grass waiting for prey to pass by. Creepy.

Normally the female (I presume, don’t quote me) carries the egg sac around with her. I guess this one’s egg had just hatched. There must have been over a hundred tiny little spiderlings jumping off her back then back on again. Ugh, that means a hundred more of the horrible things to crawl into the house and scare the wits out of me when I pick something up off the floor.

Have you ever seen anything more nightmarish? I don’t think I’ll go to sleep tonight.

11 comments:

Angela Ackerman said...

I actually like spiders, but if I'd seen this in person, I think even I'd be shuddering...

Anonymous said...

Ummm... did you happen to think you might step on it and get rid of a hundred in one fell swoop?

=0)

Hey, I like wildlife just fine as long as it's not in my territory.

Liana Brooks said...

We have those, and the larger variety that are dinner plate size wolf spiders. When we moved into the new house we found them everywhere, the closet, the sink, the bath, and (my favorite) waiting in front of the fridge one night. I know they're hunt and wait predators so I don't know if the spider was waiting for a sandwich or hunting a hungry toddler.

Adrienne said...

I saw your post on Verla's and had to check it out. Just this morning I went to pull on my jeans and a big black spider crawled out. Yikes! At least it wasn't crawling with babies...

Kelly Polark said...

You are brave to get close enough to take this picture! Yikes!

Brenda said...

That has got to be the ugliest spider I have ever seen...of course I am usually running in the opposite direction so I don't get a good look, but I'm pretty sure I've seen nothing like this...if I had, I would still be running...grin..

Kate said...

Angela - you like spiders? You must be one in a million! ;)

Sally, I did think of it, but I'm squeamish about squashing even one spider, so the thought of squashing a hundred at once gives me the heebie-jeebies!

Just_Me - this one was quite big enough for me!

Adrienne - I hate it when that happens. Sometimes around here, instead of a spider, it's a scorpion...but they're not very big where I live or I'd really freak!

Kelly - Thank goodness for zoom lenses!!!

Brenda - these are ugly without the piggy-backing babies!

Anonymous said...

Ewwwwwwww!!! Reminds me of Puerto Rico; there are GIANT spiders there. I saw a woman grab one and squish it in her bare hand. There were spider legs going everywhere.....
Warm Regards,
Melanie

Nora MacFarlane said...

Ewww... nuf said.

Rena Jones said...

OMGosh -- how COOL is that! I don't like spiders, in particular, but to catch a picture like that is really neat. Wow!

Lily Cate said...

I'm with Angela. I like spiders.
They are a great, free security system to keep out anything else that wants to crawl in! My husband thinks killing a spider is very bad luck. Plus, they are all Charlotte to me!

But, I have to say, we don't have anything approaching that thing here in Wisconsin. Our house spiders are never more than an inch, inch and a half big.
We do have huge, beautiful garden spiders, but true to their names, they stay strictly outdoors.