Yes, this is a picture of a gigantic spider. Well, gigantic by my standards, anyway. What kind is it? Is it actually as large as it seems?
That seems to be a Golden Orb Spider, which, allowing for some perspective effects, can grow to large enough size that your picture appears to be real. Searching google pictures for “golden orb spiders” yields several independent similar size comparison pictures, e.g. this or this
Beautiful! And here I thought it would be an Australian-only animal, but various species are apparently found all around the world.
Used to see lots of them when I lived on Lamma Island in Hong Kong. Yes, they really are that big.
ETA: coincidentally, the Wikipedia article has a picture of one that is captioned “N. maculata on Lamma Island, Hong Kong” - so maybe I lived in an acknowledged nest of these things.
I would need psychiatric care if I walked into one of those webs. A walked into a garden spider web once and it didn’t break. I backed out and…. you can imagine the get-the-spider-off-me dance that ensued. I knocked the spider out of the web with a garden hose (seemed appropriate) and washed it down the street but (I swear to God) it started walking back to it’s point of origin. That wasn’t gonna happen.
How could you post a picture of a gigantic spider without saying how gigantic it is? You have betrayed our trust.
Holy hell – whose hand is that?? And why?? Why isn’t there a flame thrower in the photo???:eek:
It was a mommy struggling back to its nest of babies. Hundreds of little tiny leggy babies. 
Hundreds of temporarily tiny leggy babies…soon to be huge, hungry adults. In your yard.
Hey, not meaning to detract the thread here, but could one cultivate an Orb Weaver into being that big?
Probably, with a reliable food source. If one lived next to a Dickensian orphanage, for example. 
Hmmm… must tighten up perimeter security at the facility. Phase Two specimens should not be found outside of their containment units yet…
May need to boost time table.
Hehe. It’s not like the picture’s URL gives any clue that it was taken in Malaysia or anything 
The file name is kuching-giant-spider-bako.jpg. I misread that at first, seeing the first letter as a F.
Concur. The words “gigantic spider” were insufficiently descriptive. Next time, please replace with “spider the size of a motherf&cking Alaskan King crab.”
Oh, sure, around here we call them banana spiders, and they’re everywhere. Giant yellow beasts with huge webs. Luckily, they’re not harmful to people, just unpleasant if you walk into them in the middle of the night when you’re out catching your mom’s dang yorkie dog that’s made an escape while you were bringing your laundry in to do while housesitting.
Not that I would know.
Is this like a reverse of the SDMB kitten rule now? All pictures of spiders must be accompanied by a measurement.
Umm, just let the spider catch the dog. Go out in an hour and pull it off the web. No more escapes…
Obligatory link of Orb Spider capturing bird. WARNING Spider Larger Than King Crab… 
Wikipedia says they have potent but non-lethal neurotoxin poison. I’m not afraid of spiders, but a neurotoxin is so painful it makes you want to die!