I shake every towel I use before I use it because i'm scared of there being a spider on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by PiotrRasputin
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I shake every towel I use before I use it because i'm scared of there being a spider on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by PiotrRasputin
They're more scared of you than you are of them.
...so they must be pretty damn scared, because holy shit they scare the crap out of me.
A woman just died from a brown recluse bite in my hometown. And one of my friends got out of going to Iraq on account of one biting him during a field exercise.
Still, though, imagine how much disease there would be without spiders checking the populations of like, flies and shit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by burky
You know, I'm sure I've eaten none per year and all of you fuckers are boosting that average.
lol. I love spiders cause they eat all the other nasty bugs. I let them hang out in my plants and the corners of my room. We have an agreement.
"Now that we're looking at it, why do spiders' legs curl up like that when they die? Well, that's pretty interesting. As in the past, I went to the book Biology of Spiders, by Rainer F. Foelix, published in 1996 for an answer. Spiders' legs, as I've mentioned before, are composed of seven segments. That means that there are six articulations, or joints between them.
Now, most animals have two sets of opposing muscles that operate their joints. Flexors, which bend them, and extensors, which straighten them. In the spider leg, with six joints, there are two joints which do NOT have extensor muscles (from the tip of the leg, this is joint number 2, and joint number 4. see HYDRAULIC PUMP, above). That means that there are no muscles to straighten those joints! How then, can the spider straighten its legs?
While you take a moment to wonder about that, consider that spiders not only possess an exoskeleton (the "armor"), but they also have a sort of endoskeleton, or inner structural supports as well. They are called "endosterna". These serve as attachment points for certain muscle groups (entosternal muscles).
Largest of the structures of this endoskeleton is shallow cuplike construction that sort of bisects the cephalothorax (prosoma) horizontally. This is called the "endosternite". There are groups of muscles that attach this structure to the carapace (upper surface) and sternumę (lower surface) of the prosoma. The picture I made above shows these in VERY simplified form. If you are interested, find the book and look at the professional version.
These muscles can move the endosternite, which can lower the volume inside the cephalothorax. Doing this can increase the fluid pressure inside the spider. This is similar to you squeezing a toothpaste tube which lowers the volume, which increases the pressure, and forces the toothpaste out . This increase in fluid pressure acts like a hydraulic pump; and this is what extends the second and fourth leg joints. Without the pressure the legs will fold, if the muscles contract, and stay folded.
While this seems like an odd arrangement to me, spiders were here long before I was, so glitches in the design must have been worked out by now.ę Pretty complicated creatures...these "simple", "primitive" spiders."
-- http://users2.ev1.net/~rickubis/brazspidr3.html
http://users2.ev1.net/~rickubis/kukhomet.jpg
That's the son of a bitch that was in my bathroom, I think, only mine was fucking juiced out of its mine. Someone call the MLB, because my spider's need to be subpoened as well.
I hate spiders too, but since I live in Texas I see at least two scorpions a week in my apartment.
Spiders really don't bother me, the brown recluse ones and whatnot scare the shit out of me but I don't really think about them. We have a lot of wolf spiders at work, me and this dude caught one in a cup one time, killed it with acetone and fossilized it in hot glue, was pretty neat.
I don't mind spiders; the ones that are brown and about an inch in diameter, I'm cool with. If I see one in my room or something, I don't bother it, because they don't bother me. However, we get a few other interesting ones in Florida:
The Banana spider... this thing scares the hell out of me. Check out its size:
http://davidmichaelkennedy.com/blog/...a%20spider.jpg
And of course, the Black Widow. I see quite a few of these around here as well... protip: If you ever come to Florida, always check your shoes for spiders if they're left outside.
http://www.geo-outdoors.info/images/...lack_widow.gif
We had a post awhile back on those camel spiders, is it really true they can jump 4ft streight up?