A few months ago a thread dealt with the largest insects (inevitably prehistoric) that ever roamed the earth. One poster had a link to a site that showed the fossilized remains of…something (supposed to be a spider). No specs were given. Now, given that I have a slight case of arachnophobia, I was wondering the dimensions of the largest EVER in history. Could it have been a mankiller? Maybe a silly question, but I have read about spiders like the barking (?) spider of Australia that will carry off chickens, and a species in Vietnam that will attack cattle…shudder Would even spiders dating back to the ice-age have been larger than current varieties?
Well, the largest spider in the world right now is the Goliath Tarantual. It is a giant, evil beast. They had one at one of the Smithsonians once and I stared into its beady eyes and he stared into mine. I could see he wanted to jump on my face and suck my eyes out. If I encountered this thing in the wild I would probably just die of fright.
I can’t find anything definitive about extinct giant spiders, but my googling skills are not the best.
Can a mod fix my boo boo?
Ya know, when I was a kid, bugs never bothered me. Growing up in the middle of Minnesota I knew that there was no such thing as a creepy crawlie that would kill me. Then I lived in places like Florida and Hawaii. And while I know deep down inside of me that I have a better chance of getting killed cos Bambi decided to cross the road at the wrong time…
If I ever saw a Goliath tarantula “I would scream. I would scream to wake the dead”.
shudder
There are exactly two kinds of spider that I am not afraid of. One is the tarantula- the bigger, the better. You can see them coming and get out of the way, and I’ve heard that they’re pretty laid back anyway. I mean, hell, people keep them as pets.
The other is the black widow. That’s right, drop for drop, probably the second most lethal venom of any critter on earth. They are also the most mellow creatures I have ever encountered. I have actually had my hand within inches of one. I was sitting on the lawn, not paying attention, and I looked, and about six inches from my hand, there she was, all black and glossy with the red hourglass and all, just sitting there minding her business, with no intention of biting me unless I actually stuck my hand in her web.
They’re like, “Yeah, man, for my size, I am the second deadliest creature on the planet, and I know it, and I am very secure in my badness and don’t feel the need to prove my badness to anybody. Just, um, could you keep your hand out of my web, though, 'cause I don’t really want to bite you, 'cause, like I said, I’m very secure in my badness and have nothing to prove, but I will still defend myself if I have to because I don’t really want to die young, and to tell you the truth, I’d really just as soon make tracks as bite you anyway, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d keep your hand out of my web, thanks.”
I really don’t think I’d be particularly freaked out if I saw one of those dinner-plate sized tarantulas either, because their venom isn’t really potent enough for them to make a meal out of me, even though it would probably make me ill if I got bitten. They have better things to do than try to suck my eyeballs out.