spiders

This is a thread for discussing all things spidery, handily gathered into a single thread that arachnophobes can conveniently ignore. Note that we are in SMMT, not in Entertainment, so real spiders only. Here's a fun situation to kick it off: Gippsland covered in webs as floods force spiders...

Australian Reptile Park warns of funnel-web spider 'bonanza' due to wet weather CW for arachnophobes, obvs.

I think I'm asking this in the right forum. This is something that apparently happened in the 80's at my aunt & uncle's house. They claim up until today that they had a big black spider from 20 cm in their living room that started to hiss at my uncle when he tried to chase it out of their...

This is just to weird. How does something like this happen? Although this quote: Contradicts this one: Which would mean the spider is an omnivore and not a vegetarian, it still is very weird to me. How does a spiders fangs adapt to eat fruit?

I know there have been a couple of spider threads already, and slander heaped upon one of nature's finest creatures, but perhaps this will change a few minds. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1179781/Meet-Hawaiian-spider-make-smile.html how can you not love her?

For an obvious reason, this picture was posted in the Forum Birdwatcher thread and started a bit of a derail, pretty much consisting of posts that started with "Holly crap, that's a big spider!". However, it was pointed out that it was a derail but I found the subject very interesting. I...

During my dog walking constitutional this morning I was surprised by this little fellow just outside my front porch: More images here http://picasaweb.google.com/thedolittle/Spiders Now I've had my fair run in with spiders. I come across wolf, yellow, and spiny orbweavers aplenty in my yard...

I am not generally scared of normal spiders ie the kind that live in north western Europe but I can't stand the giant poisonous Australian things. Today I found a spider in my house that I think was too large and hideous to be a British species. It's body was about 1cm in diameter, it had legs...

Just wondering... What are the possible evolutionary reasons/benefits? Is there a specific different function for some of these? Most (if not all) seem to be on the front of the head and primed for binocular vision, but how many does a spider need before redundancy creeps in?

Bug Girl: I have a small web spinner out front on the porch, and was wondering if you had any idea what it is. It is slightly smaller than the nail on my pinky, and colored like a lady bug. It has what looks like a carapice that is reddish (a little orange-y in the red) with some black spots...