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Thread: raining spiders

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    Default raining spiders

    Fuck. That!

    there wouldn't be a phone book big enough to crush all the wee bastards!

    I would move....Country.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qpsQg9pWJo&sns=em

    The Northeast may be prone to blizzards this time of year, but in Brazil it’s raining spiders. In a video that’s covered the Internet like an immense web, a local photographer captures images of thousands of spiders shimmying up and down silk threads attached to telephone pole wires. The footage gives the distinct impression of a shower–or perhaps light snow–of spiders sprinkling down on the shocked residents below.

    Erick Reis, a 20-year-old web designer in Santo Antonio da Platina, a town about 250 miles west of Sao Paulo, captured the striking video that has since accumulated more than 2 million YouTube views over the course of the week. “I was shooting an engagement party for some friends of mine and I saw the spiders when I was leaving, now in the late afternoon,” he explained to TV450000, which posted the video. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

    According to biologist Marta Fischer of the Pontifical Catholic University of Parana, however, the phenomenon is not so strange. ”This type of spider is known to be quite social,” she said. “They are usually in trees during the day and in the late afternoon and early evening construct sort of giant sheets of webs, in order to trap insects.”

    Scientists have described around 40,000 species of spiders around the world, but only a handful of them are social. These 23 species are scattered around the world and sometimes swarm, like ants or bees. Females often outnumber males 10 to 1 in colonies that can exceed 50,000 individuals.

    Around Sao Paulo and its neighboring cities, she said, it’s not an unusual site to see a sky speckled by spiders. The species, Anelosimus eximius, can be found from Panama to Argentina and lives in colonies sometimes comprised of thousands of individuals. Each spider is around the size of a pencil eraser. As Examiner reports, the species’ webs can stretch from the ground up to tree canopies or human constructions 65 feet high.

    If strong winds come along, the web may detach from its anchors, carrying the spiders and their ruined home to new sites where they appear to “rain down.” Catching rides on the wind–en mass–was likely what happened in Santo Antonio da Platina. While the humans gawked below, the flustered spiders were simply trying to pull themselves together after an unexpected journey from some forest or park.

    Before North American readers breathe a sigh of relief that this isn’t happening a bit closer to home, however, it’s worth noting that similar colonies live in Texas. In Lake Tawakoni State Park, just east of Dallas, Guatemalan long-jawed spiders construct enormous webs covering up to 600 foot stretches. The spiders build the huge webs in less than two weeks. Researchers think the spiders achieve such sudden engineering feats thanks to their “remarkable reproductive capabilities and ability to disperse by ballooning,” according to A Field Guide of Scorpions and Spiders of Texas.

    So far, Dallas residents haven’t reported massive sheets of webs and their arachnid residents “ballooning” into backyards. But, as witnessed by residents of Santo Antonio da Platina, stranger things have happened.



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    greens117 (4th May 2014),  WRATH OF BOD (4th May 2014)  


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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Quote Originally Posted by CallmeGoose View Post
    Fuck. That!

    there wouldn't be a phone book big enough to crush all the wee bastards!

    I would move....Country.
    Now now Mr Goose. They are the children of mother nature no different to you or I. We have to learn to live with our fellow creatures not destroy them every chance we get. They have more reason to be afraid of us than us of them. Especially as there are so many phone books in the world.

    And another thing: If we kill all the insects, Bilbo will have to sell his camera equipment. (">

    Thanks to BigBird

    CallmeGoose (4th May 2014)  


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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Quote Originally Posted by BigBird View Post
    They have more reason to be afraid of us than us of them.
    You are not wrong........ I would have had the flame thrower out first change I got !

    Thanks to macmilm

    CallmeGoose (4th May 2014)  


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    Default Re: raining spiders

    I would drop a nuke on the area! Fucking 'oribble things!
    We all make mistakes sometimes

    Thanks to Goldberg

    CallmeGoose (4th May 2014)  


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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Quote Originally Posted by BigBird View Post
    Now now Mr Goose. They are the children of mother nature no different to you or I. We have to learn to live with our fellow creatures not destroy them every chance we get. They have more reason to be afraid of us than us of them.
    You know BB I just can't agree with you on this subject, if I was so tiny that I got caught in their web they wouldn't think twice about killing me and then eating me...... Come to think about it they would probably eat me alive.

    Yes they kill for food whilst us humans don't therefore would you like me to send you every spider I kill so that we don't waste their bodies and you can make a nice pie, just post your address and we can all send you them.

    2 Thanks given to Rhinoz

    CallmeGoose (4th May 2014),  Goldberg (4th May 2014)  


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    Default Re: raining spiders

    WTF. is it a sign of something bigger coming ??? lol

    Sent By Brick Wrapped In Paper Thrown Through The Window..........

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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Look for pictures of trees in countries prone to flooding. They all escape up trees and cover the tree with web! Very scary..
    We all make mistakes sometimes

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    Default Re: raining spiders

    ‘Spider trees’, the ghosts of flooded Pakistan

    http://observers.france24.com/content/20110526-spider-trees-ghosts-flooded-pakistan-sindh


    Sindh valley trees embalmed by hundreds of spider webs. Photo: Russell Watkins / DFID.

    Nearly a year has passed since Pakistan was devastated by floods on an unprecedented scale. The disaster left many scars, but none so surprising as the ghostly ‘spider trees’ along the country’s river banks.

    In July 2010, Pakistan experienced the equivalent of ten years worth of rain in less than a week. The downpour left several thousand people dead and 21 million refugees. The economic fallout was also disastrous, with tens of thousands of cattle drowned and an estimated seven billion euros of material damage.

    A study carried out by the American Geophysical Union recently concluded that the disaster could have been limited if the Pakistani authorities had known how to analyse the meteorological indications in the days leading up the disaster.




    Photos posted on Flickr by the UK Departement for International development. Photo: Russell Watkins

    These photos were taken in the Sindh Valley, in south-eastern Pakistan. The waters receded more slowly from Sindh than any of the other zones affected by the floods.


    Contributors

    Russell Watkins


    "They were just small, harmless spiders, but there were a lot of them"

    Russell Watkins works for the Department for International Development (DfID), the British governmental department responsible for promoting development and poverty reduction.

    I took these photos in December 2010. We do not know when this phenomenon first appeared but the residents, who had left the region in August during the floods, discovered these trees on their return in November 2010. They had never seen anything like it before.





    As the waters rose, the spiders instinctively climbed the trees, bit by bit, to protect themselves. The floods took so long to recede that the spiders ended up colonising whole trees. The spider webs which they wove ended up embalming the branches, creating these strange sights. They were just small, harmless spiders, but there were a lot of them !




    "Locals say the spiders reduced the risk of malaria infection"


    Local residents told us that the spider webs trapped a large quantity of mosquitos, which are especially prevalent in the marshy areas. Although they say they have no scientific verification, they believe that the risk of malaria infection has decreased as a result.


    Some of my colleagues have recently been back to these sites. They noticed that the spider webs are beginning to disappear as the waters recede and the rains start. But most trees were asphyxiated by the webs, and did not survive the spider invasion.

    There are still a million displaced people in the Sindh region. We are working to build homes and deliver food and medical supplies, but it takes time. We are in for the long-haul."






    Thanks to CallmeGoose

    Goldberg (4th May 2014)  


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    Default Re: raining spiders

    That's the one. I'm on tapatalk tonight so was too much effort to post with the story.
    We all make mistakes sometimes

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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Quote Originally Posted by Rhinoz View Post
    You know BB I just can't agree with you on this subject, if I was so tiny that I got caught in their web they wouldn't think twice about killing me and then eating me...... Come to think about it they would probably eat me alive.

    Yes they kill for food whilst us humans don't therefore would you like me to send you every spider I kill so that we don't waste their bodies and you can make a nice pie, just post your address and we can all send you them.

    Actually the one doing the killing should be the one doing the eating.

    I just don't understand killing anything for no apparent reason other than we don't like the look of it. I have saved many insects including wasps and spiders (some of them huge) by coaxing them to crawl on to my hand and then putting them down out of danger. They have no negative effect on my life by being in my house or garage so why would I feel the need to take their life. Had a wasps nest in my shed one year and would often be going into the shed and almost collide with a wasp flying out. No harm ever came to me or the wasp so where's the problem.

    I just happen to have respect for all living creatures. Be quite ironic if I end my life being eaten by a polar bear, trampled by a herd of elephants, or stung to death by a thousand bees but if it does happen it will probably be my fault and not theirs because humans are the only creatures to kill without good reason. (">

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    Default Re: raining spiders








    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Thanks to CallmeGoose

    BigBird (5th May 2014)  


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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Quote Originally Posted by BigBird View Post
    humans are the only creatures to kill without good reason. (">
    Sorry to say that is bullshit..... many animals kill for fun !!
    A quick google shows up this list : http://www.cracked.com/article_16762...l-kingdom.html

    Plenty more where that came from.... I think many people believe what you said because hippies have been quoting it for decades, but it's actually not true at all

    !
    !
    \/

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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Quote Originally Posted by macmilm View Post
    Sorry to say that is bullshit..... many animals kill for fun !!
    A quick google shows up this list : http://www.cracked.com/article_16762...l-kingdom.html

    Plenty more where that came from.... I think many people believe what you said because hippies have been quoting it for decades, but it's actually not true at all

    !
    !
    \/
    My comment still stands. The animals in that link are not killing for fun. Most of the examples on that page are to do with a natural inbuilt instinct to protect the colony or increase their own bloodline. There are a couple that don't make sense and they are the two most intelligent creatures there...Dolphins and Chimps. There is probably a reason behind it that we don't know yet. Of course it could be that the more intelligent the animal the more stupid it really is. Man being a perfect example.

    Lions:
    Males do sometimes kill cubs only after they take over a family and they are not the fathers of those young cubs. They do this to continue their own genetic lines since female lionesses are not fertile until their cubs are born or at least grow to a certain age. Killing the cubs and mating immediately with the females afterwards ensures that future pride members are related to him and reasonably grown by the time he is replaced in about another 10 years or so.

    Ants:
    It's a means of preventing populations from swelling to larger numbers than the colony can provide for. Since an overabundance of new ants could make it hard to make room for and feed the colony, sometimes, ants who are laying eggs at inopportune times need to be eliminated, which their siblings take care of with ruthless efficiency.

    Cuckoo:
    Basically all animals have the same biological drive... that is to produce as many young as they can, it all related to biological fitness. So, if the cocukoo can lay its eggs in the nest of other birds, thye will be able to lay many more eggs than they would if they simply laid them in their own nest.

    Spiders are not dirty and don't spread disease. They don't compete with us for food. Our young are not at any risk from them. Our survival is not affected by them being around. Why are we afraid, and feel the need to kill something as harmless to us as the screw holding up the bookshelf. Actually the screw could give way and bring the bookshelf down on top of you so I'll rephrase that...Why are we afraid, and feel the need to kill something less harmless to us than the screw holding up the bookshelf. (">

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    Default Re: raining spiders

    I had a phobia of all things insect most of my life and I guess that stems back to 2 experiences when I was a very young lad. First one was when Me and some mates found an old air raid shelter in a wood that had been bricked up. We decided to try and get in it thinking (as kids do) there would be stuff in there from the war. After hacking out numerous bricks, I started kicking the wall until I eventually fell through it as it collapsed. I fell onto the ground inside and as my eyes adjusted to the low light, I could see literally the entire walls and floor covered in stag beetles, there must have been thousands of them making some sort of clicking sound, and I was also laying on a load of them. Took me seconds to jump up and run home screaming like a girl.

    The next incident was in Germany, I disturbed a wasps nest and got stung pretty bad in numerous places including in the ear and up the nose, my eyelids etc. Took me some weeks to get over that one.

    These experiences set my phobia up for many years until I ended up having to raise my two young kids alone. I didn't want them to take on my phobia so whenever some spider or insect etc. would make an appearance in the house, I'd keep my fear under control and get it out the house without killing it.

    I decided to try and deal with things so we all started watching documentaries about all things nature, including all those 'ugly' little species that scared me, and within a short time, I came to realise how fascinating and amazing they were rather than the life long fear I had of them up to that point.

    Hopefully my kids will have also learnt to not go fucking about with wasps nests just because you're bigger than them.

    I guess it's down to understanding nature rather than fear it and realising we don't actually 'own' this world.

    Thanks to burner1

    BigBird (5th May 2014)  


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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Quote Originally Posted by burner1 View Post
    I guess it's down to understanding nature rather than fear it and realising we don't actually 'own' this world.
    My mother was bitten by a large house spider when I was a child but I somehow understood (maybe I had read it) that it was in self defense because she had grabbed the spider between her thumb and forefinger so the spider felt under attack. I proved this point to her less than a week later by showing her an even bigger spider crawling on my open hand.

    My girlfriend was scared of spiders when we met 9 years ago. Through my influence she is now happy to have them around and even allow them to crawl on her hand. As you say it is a matter understanding nature instead of fearing it. Insects will only bite or sting us in self defense when they feel threatened. I sometimes show people a wasp crawling on my face or open hand to prove this point. (">

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    DF VIP Member Rhinoz's Avatar
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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Quote Originally Posted by BigBird View Post
    Insects will only bite or sting us in self defense when they feel threatened.
    ......I'm the exact and same, when I find a spider in the house I feel threatened and I have to kill it, I've done all the placing them outside stuff and they always find their way back, either that or is twin is visiting!

    I like many have a phobia and won't tolerate them in my house, if I'm under a tree and one lands on me then that's different, I'll knock it off me but won't kill it.

    We all have ways of dealing with them.

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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Got a vest out of the drawer earlier for the boy and a spider ran over my hand. Must have took sanctuary after it was on the washing line.

    I screamed like Macmilm's missus had fisted me again, shook it off and it hit the deck and died..

    I tried to PM BigSheep but it was too late... I felt like the Tin Man all day today.. That poor spider.
    We all make mistakes sometimes

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    Default Re: raining spiders

    I'll stamp on spiders all day long, perfectly quick and humane way to dispatch these bastards. However I wouldn't flambé them with a torch or pull their legs off and watch them roll about, thats just cruel and unnecessary.
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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Just had to administer the slipper to one in the kitchen before going to bed and I couldn't figure out where the bits went? All that was left was a greasy skid mark. It was as though the slipper was hewn of iron and the wall was an anvil. I've just breathed that thing in haven't I?!
    No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...

    Thanks to beansontoast

    CallmeGoose (6th May 2014)  


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    Default Re: raining spiders

    Saturday night entertainment suggestion for you lot:



    And did you know that in your lifetime, on average you will eat at least eight spiders while asleep. Just something for you to think about when you go to bed after watching the film. (">

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