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Scientists figure humans may be born with a fear of spiders and snakes, healthy phobias that up the odds of survival in the wild. It's not known how such an inborn fear might develop, however. Now researchers have proven that unborn crickets can gain a fear of spiders based on their mother's harrowing experiences. Scientists put pregnant crickets into terrariums containing a wolf spider. The spiders' fangs were covered with wax so the spiders could stalk but not kill the pregnant crickets. After the crickets laid their eggs, the researchers compared the behavior of the offspring with offspring whose mothers...

When we think of spiders, us Brits tends to imagine the black and brown creatures that thrive in dry corners and give us a fright when we least expect it. Australians, the other hand, are privy to much more exciting sights, as these pictures of the 'peacock spider' prove. While it may be eight-legged like every other spider, this one has an impressive mating ritual to attract a partner. It shows off a rainbow of colours to impress nearby females by fanning out two brightly patterned flaps at the back of his body. Displaying its spectrum of shades in an...

Amateur fossil hunters Jamie and Jonathan Hiscocks were looking for dinosaur remains in East Sussex, UK, when they instead found tiny spider webs trapped inside a piece of ancient amber. Oxford University paleobiologist Martin Brasier inspected the amber, which was assigned an age of over 100 million years. He concluded that spiders back then were able to spin webs just like today’s garden spiders.The amber-encased webbing formed concentric circles like those that contemporary orb-weaver spiders manufacture. Also evident were “little sticky droplets along the web threads to trap prey,� Brasier told the Daily Mail. He added, “You can match the...

SOUTHEAST Queenslanders should be on the lookout for large black funnel-web spiders as big as an adult hand. As the hot, humid weather arrives, the potentially deadly spiders are on the move, with the first reports of the season this week. Queensland Museum senior curator Robert Raven said yesterday sightings of male funnel-webs had been confirmed at Mt Tamborine in the Gold Coast hinterland and Mt Glorious, west of Brisbane. With summer temperatures and rain, male funnel-webs would be active until at least March or April. Males often wandered at night searching for females, especially during rain. They are black,...

Spiders deserve their reputation as bloodthirsty critters. Up until now, all 40,000 species known to science seemed to eat by sucking the juices out of insects and other prey. But researchers have come across a spider that is a vegetarian, and is apparently the first example of a plant-eating spider. Two scientists, working independently in Costa Rica and Mexico, noticed that the neotropical jumping spider feeds on acacia leaf tips. These yummy leaf tips are primarily eaten by ants, which in turn defend the plants from predators. But the spider, known as Bagheera kiplingi, has developed a taste for the...

San Diego, California, has a problem with spiders. These aren’t the cute David Bowie kind or the useful silk-making kind, these are the invasive, super-poisonous kind. Originally from South Africa, the brown widow spider, also called the gray widow, brown button spider, or the geometric button spider has spread like wildfire throughout the United States and has recently found the city of San Diego to their liking. Not only are they running the local spider population out of town, they’re also pretty much running everything and everyone out of town as their population swells out of control. While the brown...

Arachnophobia has gripped southeastern France after a pensioner suffered a near-lethal bite from a rare spider whose venom is said to be "as dangerous as a cobra's". François Inderchit, 59, was settling down for his afternoon siesta earlier this month in Orange, in Vaucluse, and was bitten by something "a bit more violent than a mosquito" when he turned over in bed. He saw that it was a spider and that he had killed it. Within 24 hours, a gaping, gangrenous wound six inches long, three inches wide and half an inch deep developed around the bite area on Mr...

I believe it's some sort of orb spider, isn't it? Harmless, but good for the garden? Looks huge, but it was about as big as a skinny quarter...beautiful markings though! Here's the original picture:

Here is video of CNN's Anderson Cooper on with David Letterman last night, where he told about getting a spider bite the night before a scheduled interview with President Obama. Cooper told letter he "shreiked like a girl" when he saw his swollen eye after the bite, but that the swelling had pretty well disappeared by the time of the interview. . . . . (Watch Video)

Australia is known around the world for its large and deadly creepy crawlies, but even locals have been shocked by the size of the giant venomous spiders that have invaded an Outback town in Queensland. Scores of eastern tarantulas, which are known as “bird-eating spiders” and can grow larger than the palm of a man’s hand, have begun crawling out from gardens and venturing into public spaces in Bowen, a coastal town about 700 miles northwest of Brisbane. Earlier this week locals spotted an Australian tarantula wandering towards a public garden in the centre of town where people often sit...

Australia is known around the world for its large and deadly creepy crawlies, but even locals have been shocked by the size of the giant venomous spiders that have invaded an Outback town in Queensland. Scores of eastern tarantulas, which are known as “bird-eating spiders” and can grow larger than the palm of a man’s hand, have begun crawling out from gardens and venturing into public spaces in Bowen, a coastal town about 700 miles northwest of Brisbane.

British scientists study Hawaiian happy face spider Scientists have found themselves raising a smile when studying this creature - the happy face spider. 22 Apr 2009 Scientists think the spider, which has the scientific name Theridion grallator and is harmless to humans, has evolved the patterns to confuse predators. Photo: CATERS The spider, which measures just a few millimetres across, has developed bizarre markings giving the appearance of a smiling face. Scientists think the spider, which has the scientific name Theridion grallator and is harmless to humans, has evolved the patterns to confuse predators. It is under-threat of extinction in...

Wow! I never knew spiders would hve these reactions.Link

ScienceDaily (Jan. 1, 2009) — New interpretations of fossils have revealed an ancient missing link between today’s spiders and their long-extinct ancestors. The research by scientists at the University of Kansas and Virginia’s Hampden-Sydney College may help explain how spiders came to weave webs.

In many spider species, females eat the males after sex. Big females eat their puny mates simply because a) they're hungry and b) they can.

Feeding your worst fears By DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published March 29, 1998.) I have received some important information via a letter from Claire Nordstrum, 13, a student in Wisconsin (state motto: "Moo"). Claire states that her science teacher told the class that "it's a proven fact that on average a person eats six spiders in a year." Another science fact this teacher revealed, according to Claire, is that "wood ticks breathe through their butts." This sounds logical to me, since if a wood tick had its whole head burrowed into your body, it wouldn't...

WILLS POINT — Entomologists are debating the origin and rarity of a sprawling spider web that blankets several trees, shrubs and the ground along a 200-yard stretch of trail in a North Texas park. Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park say the massive mosquito trap is a big attraction for some visitors, while others won't go anywhere near it. "At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland," said Donna Garde, superintendent of the park about 45 miles east of Dallas. "Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can...

A GERMAN man who lived with over 200 black widow spiders was fatally bitten by one and then eaten by his other pet creepy-crawlies. Police found Mark Voegel, 30, in his apartment partially eaten by his pet spiders, several snakes, lizards and thousands of termites, Sun.co.uk reported. Neighbours called police after becoming worried about the smell coming from Voegel's apartment. Police were met by an unforgettably gruesome scene. “It was like a horror movie. His corpse was over the sofa," a police spokesman said. “Giant webs draped him, spiders were all over him. They were coming out of his nose...

Stockholm - Employees of heavy-vehicle maker Volvo have been confronted with a startling element of globalisation at their Swedish assembly plant - big hairy spiders from Brazil. The spiders have been discovered at the northern plant in Umea, 640 kilometres north of Stockholm - apparenlty arriving with shipments of truck cabins made in Brazil, reports said Tuesday. The biggest spider found so far was eight centimetres across, an employee a told Vasterbottens-Kuriren nesspaper, adding: 'It was not a Swedish spider.' Some of the creatures moved 'incredibly fast'. No one has been bitten, the reports said - but management has...

A cousin to the well-known black widow spider, brown widow spider, is increasingly being spotted in Louisiana, bug experts say. The spiders are generally found in tropical areas but were reported along the Mississippi Gulf Coast last year. Entomologists with the Louisiana State University AgCenter say the spiders likely migrated from Florida through commercial imports of plants, food, building materials, or furniture. LSU entomologist Dennis Ring is advising Louisiana residents to wear gloves, long-sleeved shirts and long pants when working outdoors, especially in areas that don't get a lot of human activity. Though less aggressive than the black widow, "its...

ALBANY, Ore.- These guys weren't exactly Snap, Crackle and Pop. What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy's ear—"like Rice Krispies"—ended up as an earache, and the doctor's diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear. "They were walking on my eardrums," Jesse Courtney said. One of the spiders was still alive after the doctor flushed the fourth-grader's left ear canal. His mother, Diane Courtney, said her son insisted he kept hearing a faint popping in his ear—"like Rice Krispies." Dr. David Irvine said it looked like the boy had something in his...

The wonderful things of spring: the scent of a Tombstone rose, the burst of Mexican poppies on Picacho Peak and a cool breeze across an Arizona porch. The not-so-wonderful things of spring: the buzz of the killer bees swarming around those spring flowers, the rattle of a coiled diamondback as you hike the trail to the peak and the welt left behind by the bite of the black widow that's been nesting in your front-porch rocker. Warmer days ahead means it's time to watch out for critters best left undisturbed.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A new study by German scientists of spiders' copulation techniques found that males leave part of their sex organ inside their female partner as a sort of "chastity belt" to deter rivals. "By breaking off parts of their intromittent organs inside a virgin female, males can reduce sperm competition and thereby increase their paternity success," the Bonn University researchers wrote in the journal "Behavioral Ecology". After setting the tone by shaking the female's web, the male has only seconds to have sex before the larger female kills him. In over 80 percent of cases, the tip of...

This is a must see video. Trust me. http://www.filecabi.net/video/spiders-drugs.html Mild profanity. (As*, bitc*)

Spider web silk, the strongest natural fiber known, could possess untapped medical potential in artificial tendons or for regenerating ligaments, scientists now say. A body of folklore dating back at least 2,000 years tells of the potential medical value of spider webs in fighting infections, stemming bleeding and healing wounds, explained molecular biologist Randolph Lewis at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Spider webs have even found a place in Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream," where the character dubbed Bottom noted, "Good Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you." While research has found...

As if the West Nile-toting mosquito isn't enough to worry Mississippians, add the poisonous Latrodectus geometricus to the state's list of creepy-crawly creatures. Dr. Jerome Goddard, entomologist with the Mississippi Department of Health, said the poisonous Brown Widow spider that is a cousin to the well-known Black Widow, is now calling the Mississippi Gulf Coast home. "The tropical Brown Widow spider .... has recently been captured in many locations along the Mississippi Gulf Coast,"Goddard said in a news release Tuesday. He said his office has been receiving many phone calls reporting buildings and grounds heavily infested with this type of...

More than 10 new species of spiders from the sea have been identified, including some with legs spanning half a metre. The creatures were collected by the Australian Antarctic Division from the icy waters around Heard Island, near Antarctica, three years ago. They have been kept on ice until recently, when Melbourne researcher David Staples began cataloguing them. He has identified 29 species, and 10 of them are new to science. "They seem to be constantly evolving and why that is is one of the mysteries," he said. Mr Staples is about to return to Melbourne to begin formally describing...

WASHINGTON - Will you walk into my parlor, said a Cretaceous spider to an ancient fly. The classic spider's web, like Charlotte would have woven, was invented just once, way back in the Cretaceous period some 136 million years ago, scientists report. Called an orb web, it's the generally circular style spun by two major types of spiders, which had raised the possibility of the two groups evolving this form separately. But a paper in Friday's issue of the journal Science says a comparison of the spider genes related to web making shows that the orb web developed just...

Wildlife Awareness Needed with Summer Heat Servicemembers need to be cautious and alert for animals than can cause serious injury or death. By U.S. Army Spc. Anna-Marie Hizer 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment KIRKUK, Iraq, June 2, 2006 — Being aware of one’s surroundings is a skill soldiers constantly maintain and seek to improve. However, one potential hazard for troops in Northern Iraq may be easily missed. And it is right under their feet. "Prevention is the best cure. Use common sense; don’t put your hands in places that could house a snake." U.S. Army Maj. Ken Brooks Temperatures...

Australian red-back spiders sniff out how much competition they have for females as they are growing up and tailor their adult size accordingly, Canadian researchers say. Michael Kasumovic and Dr Maydianne Andrade of the University of Toronto report their findings in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology. "Males are really tracking the selection pressures that they're facing in an environment. They're aware of male density and the amount of competition they're going to be facing," Mr Kasumovic said. Like most spiders, male red-back spiders are much smaller than the females but they vary in size. Mr Kasumovic and...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A red-faced Australian nudist who tried to set fire to what he thought was a deadly funnel web spider's nest ended up with badly burned buttocks, emergency officials said Monday. The 56-year-old man was at a nudist colony near Bowral, about 60 miles southwest of Sydney, Sunday when he spotted what he believed to be a funnel web spider hole. Ambulance workers, including a helicopter crew, were called to the scene after the man poured petrol down the hole and then lit a match in an attempt to kill the offending arachnid. "The exploding gasoline fumes left...

A British spider has developed a novel way of wooing dangerous females and avoiding getting eaten in the process. The male nursery web spider (Pisaura mirabilis) faces an aggressive - and bigger - female when he feels the need to mate. Some male spiders pay the ultimate price for a few moments of pleasure when the female devours them after mating. Even worse, some males are eaten before they have the chance to mate. To overcome this problem the nursery spider has devised a strategy of offering his thumbnail-sized mate a love-token, such as a dead insect. But after presenting...

Spider Control Made Simple A 34 year-old German woman decided to rid her garage of spiders- so: First she attacked the pesky critters with hair spray – lots of it. The spiders were unimpressed , so the annoyed hausfrau grabbed a cigarette lighter , and attempted to burn them out. Hair spray being quite inflammable , there was a sort of popping noise,and, within minutes , flaming material was oozing down the garage wall , and setting a nearby hedge ablaze. The woman grabbed her garden hose , and tried to put the blaze out ; but it spread to...

The Arctic may be devoid of industry and agriculture, but it is slowly turning into a pollutant dump just the same. The phenomenon is known as the grasshopper effect, because the contaminants - including persistent organic compounds like PCB's and DDT - tend to evaporate in the more temperate zones where they are produced, migrate on air currents and condense in the colder polar region. "What we've been seeing over the past 15 years is that the Arctic is essentially acting as a depository for many industrial chemicals," said Jules M. Blais, a biology professor at the University of Ottawa....

Last Updated: Friday, 29 April, 2005, 20:39 GMT 21:39 UK Hospital releases deadly spider The Wandering Spider is one of the world's most deadly spiders A deadly spider that bit a chef has been accidentally released by the Bridgwater hospital treating him. Taunton and Somerset NHS Trust confirmed a full investigation was taking place into the incident. The spider is not thought to pose a public health risk as experts say it would have died soon after its release into the hospital grounds. Matthew Stevens was bitten twice on the hand by the Brazilian Wandering spider, as he cleaned behind...

A mature male wolf spider (Schizocosa uetzi) with ornamental pigmentation on a portion of the right foreleg. The experiences of an immature female can affect how she reacts to similar advances when she grows up. In the case of wolf spiders, researcher Eileen A. Hebets. found that females encountering a courting male preferred to mate with ones who looked like the guys they had met when they were youngsters. Those meeting unfamiliar males were more likely to attack and eat them than to mate with them, the Cornell University researcher found.

I dont know just about 4 20!!!

Spider's bite halts train in its tracksJanuary 8, 2005RAYMOND Rutter's morning driving a commuter train from Gosford to Sydney became a race against time to save the life of a passenger bitten by a funnelweb spider. The 20-year-old victim, from Gosford, who did not wish to be named, boarded Mr Rutter's train at 9.41am on Thursday at Gosford. The spider was inside her handbag. At 10.30am, the woman screamed for help when the spider bit her on the finger when she reached inside the bag. Her cry for help sent most fellow arachnophobic passengers fleeing to other carriages, but some...

**FILE PHOTO** A mature male wolf spider. (AP Photo/Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.) WASHINGTON - Predatory insects do not have access to the barrage of diet advice thrust at people, but they still manage to vary what they eat to get balanced nutrition, research shows. "It gives us a new image of small predatory insects and spiders as animals that are very careful about what they eat," said David Mayntz of the University of Oxford in England. The discovery "shows that predators are not just greedy animals that will eat everything," said Mayntz, lead researcher in the...

Spider prompts school evacuationFrom correspondents in London September 29, 2004A TROPICAL spider gave pupils at a school in southern England a surprise day-off from classes today after bug control experts had to be called in. An African spider, brown in colour and as big as a hand, dropped out of a set of drums at the school in Thatcham, west of London, that had been brought from Senegal, a local education official said. "The spider was spotted yesterday (Monday) when it fell out of a set of drums," said Keith Ulyatt, a local education authority spokesman. "It was spotted by...

Deadly spiders as prison drugs September 8, 2004 INMATES at a NSW jail have been caught keeping deadly redback spiders - so they could milk their venom and inject it for a high. In a bizarre dice with death, prisoners watered down the venom before injecting, according to Corrective Services documents. The spiders were among contraband seized from prisoners, according to documents obtained by the State Opposition, under Freedom of Information laws, which also revealed the number of weapons seized in jails has quadrupled over a year while drug use and "potato factory" alcohol set-ups have doubled. Guards found more...

An Iraqi sheik claims Allah sent giant spiders to the town of Fallujah to help its residents fend off attacks by U.S. military forces. Sheik Mahdi Saleh Al-Sumide'i spoke to Syrian TV on Monday, claiming several Arab television stations videotaped the helpful arachnids.

I need some SPIDER identification help. A few weeks ago, I was bitten by a Brown Recluse (very painful and long lasting effects). One of my dogs was bitten by another spider - and my wife a couple days ago was also bitten - but NOT by another Recluse luckily. Tonight I just found THIS rather large spider sitting at my back door - now dead! Can anyone identify this arachnid? Hot Springs Arkansas area. Thanx! ps. that is 1 inch on the scale.

DAVISBORO, Ga. (AP) -- An inmate is suing the prison where she is serving a 10-year sentence for burglary and aggravated assault because she says the facility is infested with spiders. Marcia Wall's lawsuit in federal court in Atlanta says she and other inmates at the Washington State Prison in Davisboro have been bitten repeatedly by spiders and that medical officials have denied them proper treatment. "They live here with us," Wall said. "We've got to share this place with them. But it's getting crazy." Department of Corrections spokeswoman Scheree Lipscomb would not comment on the lawsuit, but said the...

JONESBORO, Ark. - Spiders have infested a county jail in northeast Arkansas, biting at least 15 inmates and confounding the exterminator. The main offender appears to be the brown recluse spider, up to three-quarters of an inch long with long, skinny legs and a violin-shaped mark on its head. Inmate Tim Steele, 26, showed off his lower left leg Friday, inflamed and red from a bite. A brown recluse's bite can cause a rash, swelling and flu-like symptoms and, in rare cases, can cause kidney failure, seizures and even coma, according to the National Institutes of Health (news - web...

AUSTRALIA'S humble red-back spider seems poised for world domination, authorities have warned. Venom expert Dr Ken Winkle said spiders, believed to be Australian red-backs, had been discovered in Japan and as far away as Belgium in the European Union. He said authorities suspected the spiders, or their egg sacks, had hitched a ride with Australian trading goods, said Dr Winkle, director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne. He said red-back spider egg sacs carried hundreds of potential spiders and were virtually immune to quarantine chemical spraying. "And one single spider escaping customs inspectors can lay...

CAMP IWO JIMA: US forces poised to invade Iraq will face snakes and scorpions that might prove just as deadly for some as bullets, bombs or gas. Desert horned vipers, fat-tailed scorpions and hairy spiders the size of an outstretched hand are lurking in the sand, ready to spring a nasty surprise on troops unlucky or foolish enough to disturb them. Navy specialists tasked with warning marines of the dangers say the biggest risk comes from bored soldiers turning to serpents for entertainment -- the cause of 85 per cent of snakebites in the 1991 Gulf War. "They just...

<p>LEICESTER, England - Thousands of the world's most exotic species of sea animals from spiders the size of dinner plates to giant woodlice face extinction if Antarctic sea temperatures rise as predicted, a scientist said Monday.</p> <p>"If the models are correct, we are likely to lose large populations of scallops, giant isopods, bivalve molluscs and giant sea spiders among others," scientist Lloyd Peck of the British Antarctic Survey told reporters.</p>

Fried Spiders: Crispy and Gooey Tue Sep 3, 8:27 AM ET By Ed Cropley SKUON, Cambodia (Reuters) - First unearthed by starving Cambodians in the dark days of the Khmer Rouge "killing fields" rule, Skuon's spiders have transformed from the vital sustenance of desperate refugees into a choice national delicacy. Black, hairy, and packing vicious, venom-soaked fangs, the burrowing arachnids common to the jungle around this bustling market town do not appear at first sight to be the caviar of Cambodia. But for many residents of Skuon, the "a-ping" -- as the breed of palm-sized tarantula is known in Khmer...

Suffolk County Health Department officials yesterday said they were "99 percent sure" the patients treated for brown recluse spider bites at John T. Mather Memorial Hospital did not have cutaneous anthrax. "I can't say it's 100 percent," said Dr. Patricia Dillon, the department's director of communicable diseases. "I'm never confident enough to say 100 percent. ... But there's no clinical evidence of anthrax, and testing to date [at the hospital] has not indicated any presence of anthrax." Officials at the Port Jefferson hospital, meanwhile, reaffirmed their diagnoses of the recluse spider bites in five people treated there since May. Some...