Enough to give you the heebie jeebies. Wonder if they are good to eat?

"Scared of spiders" you bet I am. "Don't look" How could I not?! Glad we don't have them here.

I just looked up about camel spiders. Google picture search show the above picture a lot. Luckily, the've been tricky with the perspective and they're not quite as big as they look inthe photo. Still BIG though.

Well, ask Australians what they have to contend with... :-) "Australia, where everything is poisonous or venomous, except sheep and people. And we are not certain about sheep." :-))) The biggest spiders are in South America. Goliath Birdeaters. http://www.wcsscience.com/biggest/spider.html They've been quite tricky with the perspective on this one. Overall camel spiders are 5" together with the feet. And the stories about 25 mph or several feet jump are urban legends. http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp And it seems to me we've had this discussion here before.

They're not so tough when you scrape them off your boots
-Starship Troopers..;) glad my son's outta there..I'll have to ask him about those..

Erlik i know aoll about the spiders in Australia and the 11 deadly snakes we have here :) I deal with 3 of those snakes every summer and two of the deadly spiders.. The new one on the list of spiders is the white tail/back...mean bugger that one.

I got bit once when I lived in Greece, I was just sitting taking a break from work and I got bit on the hand, which got swollen I couldnt close it, got some medication and the swealing went down in a couple of days.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=908116&Start=1&Sectionid=9&filter_genre_id=40&WhatsN

Attached Link: http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp

Message edited on: 04/16/2005 14:04

OK,..........Ewwwwww !

Big or small, I dont like em except as a source of scientific curiosity and fascination. Imagine one of those things crawling up your pant leg! Id be running around like a lunatic, jumping up and down and screaming like a banshee!

Bryster runs off to buy a pair of big boots and cancel his trip to..er....where did you say these spiders live?

I'm getting goosebumps just looking at those. Reminds me of those Alien face huggers.

LOL @Quest - I was at a gas station one summer and nearly pulled my shirt off, when a bug flew in and landed between my errmm... never mind. Thankfully, I got the critter out before any harm was done to my pride.

Ang pulling her shirt off? WTG! There's a thought for sore eyes.....

When I lived in Saudi I did see a few scorpions and caught a scorpion using mechanical fingers out of my toolbox. But I never saw the camel spider. Saw an Asp there too. when I saw him everone gave him a wide berth . Funny because asps are quite small. (A small venomous snake)

LOL...Ang, that's some bug bite! ;D

hmm..only 4 poisonous snakes in North America, and we have 3..we have black widows, but that's about as bad as it gets..;) I've been told that 'daddy longlegs' hoosier paterus, are actually quite poisonous, only their mandibles are too short to bite us ..go figure..;)

Well Pakled, when I was very young (about 11 or 12) and went off to camp in the Bear Mountain area of New York near West Point, we slept in barracks. One night when we got in, all tired from funning, playing and swimming, after a cold shower, we went off to sleep. They were bunk beds and I had a lower bunk. When I plopped down on my bed, I turned my face around on the pillow only to see Mr. Paterus face first. It seemed like a giant from that close, let me tell you! But in actuality, it measured about 1 - 2 inches from leg end to leg end. But it was enough to scare the crap out of me! Instinctively I grabbed the pillow and tossed it into the middle of the barracks and everyone came crashing down on it to squash it (about 25 guys). That pillow stood there until the next day when they came to cleanup.

pakled,

actually the myth was that daddy long legs are among the most deadliest spiders in the world or something like that but its teeth or mandibles are too small to pierce enough layers of human skin to inject its poison.

It is all false actually. Their bite, which can penetrate human skin contains very little and mild toxicity (will make the bite area sting abit, thats about all). So fortunately, nothing to worry about the most common spider in North America ...last time I checked anyways :-)

Message edited on: 04/16/2005 22:10

OH Thanks Innovator, Daddy long legs have been the 'only' spider I didn't feel afraid to handle and I've handled them a lot and now you tell me they can bite me! Great, add a new fear to my long list. ;P

ooh I know that one! The story is exagerated. I believe this spider did run though, just not at 25mph :-P and as far as I know it does not actually jump or at least not high enough to cling to the belly of a camel (like the myth goes). Also the camera angle makes these spiders look even bigger then they actually are ;) I've heard the myth that one of these spiders ate away part of a soldiers leg while the poor soldier was sleeping. However this myth isn't true either :P but it's still a cool creepy story! Ang, don't worry, daddy long legs are EXTREMELY hard to get them to bite you and they are completely not venomous to humans either. I've seen an actual test on that very myth innovator is mentioning. A guy put his arm in a chamber with many daddy long legs in it and they had to try quite hard to actually make any of them them bite him at all! and even when bitten it hardly had any effect. You probably won't ever get bitten by one unless you would actually seriously try to get bitten, and even then you mightvery well still not get bitten :-P

ah well..another urban myth destroyed..;) they're among the least creepy spiders I know of..;)

I was once bitten by a Daddy Longlegs,.........but that may be because I tried to dress him up in a little cowboy outfit and sing "Home on the Range",.......I dunno.

@Sackrat - ROFLMAO Ummmm Did I really agree to meet in NYC with you? You are scaring me, lol. ;P

Message edited on: 04/17/2005 20:56

Oh, yuk! I've seen one of those in really close proximity, WELL too close for me. We had just got out of the 4x4 and we were heading for the Lakeside golf club bar. It was night but the area around the bar was lit up with lights, and I saw one of these things running diagonally across where I was just about to walk. Arrrrgggghhhhhhhhh! Boy did I make it into the bar fast that night! brrrrrrr! Fran (um, it was in the Sultanate of Oman, desert - where my husband works)

oooh cool did you manage to get a picture of it before running off to that fresh glass of cold beer?

Beer nuthing! I needed somfink a good deal stronger than that!!!! I ran so fast I nearly left all my hair behind.... still standing on end! Besides I was going out for a drink, it was night, I had no camera with me. Even if I had, the camera I owned at the time didn't work in the dark, it needed SOME light to focus before it operated, even using its flash. Sheesh! At a time like that he talks about cameras! (deep shuddering) Fran (shaking head sadly at man's misunderstanding of female fear of crawly things - BIG crawly things) BIG crawly things at NIGHT no less. Phew!

what happened to "cute furry animals"? :P

Spiders are NEVER 'cute'. In fact, the definition of 'a spider' is definitely the exact opposite of 'cute'... yup, definitely!

Definition of spider: Any of numerous arachnids of the order Araneae, having a body divided into a cephalothorax bearing eight legs, two poison fangs, and two feelers and an unsegmented abdomen bearing several spinnerets that produce the silk used to make nests, cocoons, or webs for trapping insects.

alternatively: Spectral Phase Interferometry for Direct Electric-Field Reconstruction

I liked your second definition better - less creepy. ggg