Bloody Big Spider

Skippy

Recently we had floods in our area, and a lady that I work with had her garage and part of the back of her house flooded.....this brought out some unwanted visitors that floated around the floor in the rising waters.

Well I tell you what if I found one of these in my house, I'd be freaking out too.....these are related to the Deadly Funnel Web Spider of New South Wales here in Australia, they look exactly alike only their venom is not as poisonous as the Funnel Web.

A bite from one of these would be very painful indeed.... and I am not sure if it would make you sick but trust me the size of the fangs on that thing were very close to being half an inch long x 2 of them!
You'd know dang well it bit ya.

The Spider is very aggressive (not this one cause he's dead pssstt don't tell anyone) and was quite happy to have a go..... this is the first spider I've had that I've been too frightened to attempt to get it out of the container.

Ohhh well I spose being a girl and all I'm allowed to be a fraidycat hu :rofl

I am sure the spider died from the affects of insect spray from the person who gave it to me, she found three of these inside her house.

Ohh okay I fess up .........in these images the spiders dead :cry

Skippy (Australia) hand held shots taken inside on the washing machine

John Mueller

Aww,he/she looks so very cute

Harryb

Skippy wrote:

Recently we had floods in our area, and a lady that I work with had her garage and part of the back of her house flooded.....this brought out some unwanted visitors that floated around the floor in the rising waters.

Well I tell you what if I found one of these in my house, I'd be freaking out too.....these are related to the Deadly Funnel Web Spider of New South Wales here in Australia, they look exactly alike only their venom is not as poisonous as the Funnel Web.

A bite from one of these would be very painful indeed.... and I am not sure if it would make you sick but trust me the size of the fangs on that thing were very close to being half an inch long x 2 of them!
You'd know dang well it bit ya.

The Spider is very aggressive (not this one cause he's dead pssstt don't tell anyone) and was quite happy to have a go..... this is the first spider I've had that I've been too frightened to attempt to get it out of the container.

Ohhh well I spose being a girl and all I'm allowed to be a fraidycat hu

I am sure the spider died from the affects of insect spray from the person who gave it to me, she found three of these inside her house.

Ohh okay I fess up .........in these images the spiders dead :cry

Skippy (Australia) hand held shots taken inside on the washing machine

Skippy afraid of a bug! I don't believe it.
Now these are the "Skippy" shots I've come to know and love. Incredible macros of icky bugs.

Skippy

Thanks Harry
I pushed the ISO up to 1600 so I could photograph them inside the house.
I forgot I had a monopod so I went and got that out and decreased the ISO, and used a slower shutter speed

Well I'm still learning what works and what doesn't
This was taken with the Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro and one Kenko Ext. Tube.

Skippy (Australia)

Harryb wrote:

Skippy afraid of a bug! I don't believe it.
Now these are the "Skippy" shots I've come to know and love. Incredible macros of icky bugs.

Skippy

Thank you

MHJS wrote:

Aww,he/she looks so very cute

I don't know how you tell the sex of a spider do you
I just know this one was real mean looking and even when it died I hesitated to pick it up in my hands........ahhhhhh it was probably a girl spider then cause they tend to be more aggressive to their male counterparts, usually kill the male then sit back and smoke a cigarette < --- so I've heard hehehe

Skippy (Australia)

Andy

ick.

Lucky Hack

The idea of taking that photograph terrifies me, and I LIKE spiders, but I wouldn't want to be looking in the camera and see it jump out of frame and then feel something on the side of my face! Any way Great shot but way too creepy just thinking about it.

hoping this message finds you well -Ian

Steve Cavigliano

You're right Skippy, that's one big ugly spidey :yikes I back away from spiders that have more hair on their legs than I do.....lol Glad this fella (or gal) was a goner. Makes them easier to work with (sort of like Harry's stuffed Egrets ;-) Tie a piece of thread around his body and shoot while you are pulling it. You might be able to get some really nice action shots :lol

I have to admit, I'm feeling a bit let down too. I always thought you we so brave. Shooting all those extremely ugly (and in some cases venomous) bugs. Now we know the truth. You're just a big wuss like the rest of us :lol4

J/K, I wouldn't have even had the guts to shoot the dead spider.....lol


Thanks for sharing,
Steve

gus

female mouse spider is my call...good find skipp !

Skippy

Hey Mr Williams

andy wrote:

ick.

Yup he was a biggy, and ickky and sticky because when I got him he was in a jar with water and gunk in it........I know they were spraying insect spray all around the place, so he didn't have much chance of surviving.

I got him into a new clean dry container with some leaves in it, but he only lasted about 24 hrs .......... Skippy (Australia)

Skippy

Thanks Ian

Lucky Hack wrote:

The idea of taking that photograph terrifies me, and I LIKE spiders, but I wouldn't want to be looking in the camera and see it jump out of frame and then feel something on the side of my face! Any way Great shot but way too creepy just thinking about it.

hoping this message finds you well -Ian

Well I wouldn't have photographed it any other way hehehe
It was already dead when I took this photo.......he's been dead a few weeks.
Yeah I know your thinking....why does she keep dead spiders in the house

Even when they are dead, they can still be quite photogenic so to speak, it's their actual body that collapses, and their legs tend to snap off too.....ohhhhhhh now she's getting freaky hehehe

It wont be long and I wont be able to use it, the body will deteriate too much and the legs become so fragile they drop off, and all this shows up in the pictures, so I keep them as long as I can to stage photos, then I dispose of them .......... Skippy (Australia)

Skippy

Hey Steve

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

You're right Skippy, that's one big ugly spidey :yikes I back away from spiders that have more hair on their legs than I do.....lol Glad this fella (or gal) was a goner. Makes them easier to work with (sort of like Harry's stuffed Egrets ;-) Tie a piece of thread around his body and shoot while you are pulling it. You might be able to get some really nice action shots :lol

I have to admit, I'm feeling a bit let down too. I always thought you we so brave. Shooting all those extremely ugly (and in some cases venomous) bugs. Now we know the truth. You're just a big wuss like the rest of us :lol4

J/K, I wouldn't have even had the guts to shoot the dead spider.....lol


Thanks for sharing,
Steve

Ahhhhhhhhhh yes well they do co-operate much better when they're dead
It's not a wise thing to have poisonous spiders inside your house, but I am very careful when I have live ones, they are kept in secure bug containers, and they are never brought out if I have any children here.

Your not wrong about being a wuss, I'll never forget the first time I had one of those big huntsmen crawling on me.....only reason I knew it was there, was because I was on my knees in front of the TV about to turn the TV on when I looked at my reflection in the screen and saw the blasted thing sitting on my shoulder :help well I tell you I hit the floor running dunno what I thought I was gonna do or where I was gonna run to, cause it was still sitting on my shoulder
They are just frightful because of their size, I knocked it onto the floor, caught it and put it outside.......then recovered from my almost heart attack hehehe

Take Care Steve.....thanks for the comment...... Skippy (Australia)

Skippy

Hi There Humungus

Humungus wrote:

female mouse spider is my call...good find skipp !

I have to rely on other people to find bugs for me, I'm always asking the folks at work if they find something intersting ....preferably alive, could they bring it in for me, and they do.......I'm really looking forward to this Spring, because my plants have grown so well, their should be some bug activity this Spring.

Your right I just found a good link on "Mouse Spiders" they treat them as they do Funnel Webs.

http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/mouse_spider.htm

When this guy was alive he looked just like Spider Picture No. 2 and 3.
I measured the body.....the body on mine is (minus legs) 3cm, the wide of the head is just over 1cm and with the legs it's over 6cm

Thanks for the info I'd heard about those Mouse Spiders but never seen one till now....... Skippy (Australia)

gus

Skippy wrote:

Thanks for the info I'd heard about those Mouse Spiders but never seen one till now....... Skippy (Australia)

They were about where i grew up...quite a shy spider. They liked moist sand most of all to burrow in.

Real real seriuos bite IF you get in their face which is not easy to do seeing as they burrow mostly.

Please tell me you didnt kill it ? That is worth maybe -1000 instant karma demerit points.

Such a serious loss of points may only be regained by NEVER killing a spider again. They do soooo much good that you dont know about. I get them off the power lines before i start work & have been known to re-locate them to the next line.

dugmar

My dad was a pilot back in his day, he was flying some plane to some remote island one trip. He stayed overnight, got up the next day, put his shoes on and in one of them was a giant spider like this. From that moment on when it came to spiders, he was a little girl. That fear rubbed of on his son a little.


Something about having eight eyes. What is that about? Freaks me out.

Skippy

Hey there Humungus
No I didn't kill it, the person who gave it to me had been spraying insect spray, and I am sure it got sprayed at some stage, plus the container they had it in was not ideal at all.........

I get a few spiders, Huntsmen and Wolf Spiders, I usually catch them put then in a container and photograph them over a period of two days, then take them outside and let them go

I prefer to photograph them alive not dead....... Skippy (Australia)

Humungus wrote:

They were about where i grew up...quite a shy spider. They liked moist sand most of all to burrow in.

Real real seriuos bite IF you get in their face which is not easy to do seeing as they burrow mostly.

Please tell me you didnt kill it ? That is worth maybe -1000 instant karma demerit points.

Such a serious loss of points may only be regained by NEVER killing a spider again. They do soooo much good that you dont know about. I get them off the power lines before i start work & have been known to re-locate them to the next line.

gus

dugmar wrote:

My dad was a pilot back in his day, he was flying some plane to some remote island one trip. He stayed overnight, got up the next day, put his shoes on and in one of them was a giant spider like this. From that moment on when it came to spiders, he was a little girl. That fear rubbed of on his son a little.


Something about having eight eyes. What is that about? Freaks me out.

A lot of people from here check their boots in the morning dugmar.

These killed 13 people before an antivenin was made avail in the 80's. My parents yard is full of them. A house a few streets away had some specialists arrive to collect them for milking & got 160 from their backyard.

Funny thing is that the venom will only kill primates.