It's hard to tell the size in this extreme closeup, but a nail head is clearly visible. My furry little friend appears to be approximately 15 nail-heads long. Hey! I can measure in whatever units tickle my fancy. It's my blog. So if you want your arachnids measured in inches or centimeters, take your own pictures and post them on your own blog. A nail-head is an acceptable measure. It's no dumber than the length of a king's thumb knuckle. Maybe I'll start my own measurement system. I declare that this spider is one Pony-hand long. That's the distance from the tip of my thirteen-year-old son's middle finger to the base of his hand. A Pony-hand.
Hick found another one of these under the porch, out by the pool, a couple of years ago. Being Hick, he put it in a Ziploc bag and sent Genius in the house to wave it in my face. I don't know how he wangled that mission, because when I asked Genius to snap a photo for me yesterday, he shook his head like Jerry Seinfeld refusing a bite of pie. He says he dislikes spiders immensely. But he did give me his $950 camera and show me how to focus. So that's my handiwork that you are about to see below. WARNING! The spider pic is coming!
This creepy behemoth was perched on the wall near our back porch ceiling, just behind the kitchen door. The Pony spotted it when he was complaining that I need to spray the wasps who have returned to our porch like swallows to Capistrano. It appears to be a Dolomedes tenebrosus, one of the largest of the North American spiders. It is also called a fishing spider. Its cousins are known for eating bugs and small minnows from the water's surface, but tenebrosus is found farther from the water. They hunt their prey rather than capturing it in webs. Come to think of it, there was a tattered dead moth on the porch. A big moth. I assume this spider was a female, because they are bigger than the males. And I don't want to see a spider bigger than this.
WARNING! Here comes spidey!
She was gone an hour later. I am not looking forward to a reunion.
6 comments:
Eeewww...spiders are so creepy. The only time I ever liked spiders was after reading Charlotte's Web when I was in second grade. It didn't last.
Thanks for visiting my blog and opting to follow. I've followed you right back here. :)
Lisa,
Thank you. I threw you into my "Lurking" sidebar for good measure. Sometimes my dashboard updatey reading list thingy disappears.
I will take a spider any day over a dang jumpy hairy-legged cricket.
I'm sorry I've taken so long to check into your blog...I read your rules of 16-year olds (strange creatures, aren't they?)
Don't ALL the rules having to do with the avoidance of appearing to be gay/boyfriends?
The dumbstick definitely makes them dumb sometimes...
That looks exactly like one that lived outside my cabin in YC. I would always see him on the trunk of a cypress tree just off the deck, and it was huge.
Ok I just went back and read the post after scrolling down the first time to look at the spider pic. I think my spider visitor was probably the same size. A pony hand, give or take.
Sioux,
All the boy rules are about being perceived as a gaylord. There was somebody with the actual name "Gaylord" in something we read several weeks ago. You can imagine how well that went over.
On the other hand, boys will do things like take a crap right in the middle of the locker room floor, with an audience, and use some kid's shirt to wipe, and see nothing unusual about such behavior.
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MommyNeeds,
Maybe that spider was sneaking some of your leftover not-really chili. Good thing she didn't get ahold of your cat. Because those Dolomedes gals are HUGE. I'm sure it would be much less traumatic to see the tiny males.
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