An enormous spider web has been found at Lake Tawakoni State Park, Texas, US.

[boutons_]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6972062.stm

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/printer_friendly/news_logo.gif
Texan spiders spin 'monster web'
An enormous spider web has been found at Lake Tawakoni State Park, Texas, US. It is not the work of one giant spider - rather, millions of small ones have been spinning away and now it is twice the size of a football field.

Park rangers are not sure why the spiders have joined forces - they describe it as a rare occurrence.

Texas A&M University entomologist Professor John Jackman told Associated Press that there were reports of similar webs every couple of years.

The web covers a 180m (650ft) stretch of trees and shrubs in the park.

Although it was initially described as "fairy-tale" white, it has turned brown from all the mosquitoes caught in its trap.

Experts say the web is either the work of social cobweb spiders that work together, or it has been created by spiders spreading out from a central point.

The park superintendent, Donna Garde, has invited arachnid and insect specialists to the park to study it first-hand.

Rangers said they expected the web to last until the autumn, when the spiders will start dying off.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6972062.stm

Published: 2007/08/31 09:57:43 GMT

© BBC MMVII

[ashbeeigh]

They just "discovered" that? How can you walk past that thing? Seriously. But it is cool. Just don't let any of those spiders bite you. Spider bites are the devil.

[George Gervin's Afro]

I was trimming my back yard last weekend when I caught somehting out of the corner of my eye. I saw garden spider that was as big as my hand about 2 feet from my face. the spider was actually in the middle of it's HUGE web... I dropped my trimmer and yell oh sh*t! When you get the chancece go online and take a look at these suckers. I went inside immediately and checked yahoo to see what in the hell it was... After finding it online I realized that the spider was about to lay eggs :oops .. I made the decision to end the threat.. I threw a basketball at it... I then had to throw the ball at 3 times before that b*tch died..

[SpursWoman]

I like spiders....that's pretty cool.

[duncan228]

I can deal with most bugs.

But for some reason spiders just creep me out.

A web that big would give me nightmares for a month.

[George Gervin's Afro]

I can deal with most bugs.

But for some reason spiders just creep me out.

A web that big would give me nightmares for a month.


I keep looking out my back window to see if another one showed up... this whole event has REALLY spooked me.. later that day i was pulling out my garden hose out of the container we keep it in and a frog jumped out of it..needless to say I almost crapped in my pants.. 2 times in one day...I'm getting to ld for surprises like these..

[George Gervin's Afro]

here is what I saw.. It was almost the size of my open hand..


http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x45/razap/byargiope8m1.jpg

[CuckingFunt]

here is what I saw.. It was almost the size of my open hand..

Fuck you for that.

Seriously.

[tlongII]

I don't like spiders and snakes.

[Sportcamper]

Awesome Spider Photo...Spiders are cool....This time of year it is so hot the giant tarantulas (http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0Je5x4MathGlgsBnRWjzbkF/SIG=12snfjeaa/EXP=1188674444/**http%3A//news.nationalgeographic.com/kids/2004/06/images/tarantula-big.jpg) come out to cool off....

[Trainwreck2100]

They are learning to work together? The rebellion is at hand, stock up on Raid people. Seriously though, without spiders the world would be overrun with insects.

[duncan228]

Didn't need the picture.
Thanks.
My nightmares begin tonight.

[ShoogarBear]

Fuck you for that.

Seriously.:rollin

Why the hell did you even open this thread?

[T Park]

Thats for that picture Dickhead :flipoff

[Trainwreck2100]

http://thefuntimesguide.com/images/blogs/brown_recluse_spider_bite_Day10.jpg

Stay away from the brown recluse

[ALVAREZ6]

what the fuck?


nuke it. kill em all.

[George Gervin's Afro]

http://thefuntimesguide.com/images/blogs/brown_recluse_spider_bite_Day10.jpg

Stay away from the brown recluse


those biatches are everywhere in Texas... may God help us all.. I found one running around in my garage that was pretty good size... 2 DAYS before I saw the other one.. :oops

[ALVAREZ6]

I like spiders....that's pretty cool.WTF is wrong with you how can anyone like them

[Richard Cranium]

Thats for that picture Dickhead :flipoff

Wasn't me.

[mardigan]

Man, that would suck to accidentaly walk through

[ShoogarBear]

Man, that would suck to accidentaly get trapped inFixed.

[ALVAREZ6]

I'd kill myself if I were placed in the middle of that shit by ripping out the jugular.

[SpursWoman]

WTF is wrong with you how can anyone like them


That's what the 54th pest control salesman said when he came to my door, pointed to some little spider eggs and told me how he would get rid of them. Well, maybe not verbatim, but he looked a little stunned when I said, "I don't want to get rid of them ... I like spiders." :lol


I don't want them crawling all over my body or anything, but I like to look at them and they kill all the mosquitos and other little bugs that I hate. I like the geckos, too. :)

I saw a huge spider on the back of my house the last time we were working in the yard ... but it ran off too quick before I could catch it. :lol

[Spurminator]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/sci_nat_enl_1188552218/img/1.jpg

An aerial photo would be cool...

[jman3000]

i guess one got in my car a few weeks ago and it spun a web underneath the steering wheel overnight... freaked me the fuck out when i got in my car the next morning.

fucker.

[ZStomp]

I hate spiders.

The other night I was at work and walking through this ladies front yard. I had my flashlight in my hand and for some reason I turned my light on in the direction I was walking to and saw a huge web....and a huge white or yellow spider in the middle of it.

Had I not turned my light on- I would have walked right into it, spider and all. I would have freaked! :lmao

For some reason, the next 1/2 half hour I kept itching all over.

I hate spiders.

[leemajors]

spiders don't particularly bother me, i try not to disturb their webs if i can help it. bees, wasps and hornets set me running for the hills though.

[Spurminator]

I'm only bothered by spiders I can't see.

[ChumpDumper]

Spiders are cool.

Outside the house.

[Avitus1]

here is what I saw.. It was almost the size of my open hand..


http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x45/razap/byargiope8m1.jpg

I get those in my yard too they are called "Argiopes" but are more commonly known as Garden Spiders or Writer Spiders.

[CuckingFunt]

:rollin

Why the hell did you even open this thread?Partly because the first few posts weren't that bad.

And partly because I'm a nosy fucker.

[CuckingFunt]

I get those in my yard too they are called "Argiopes" but are more commonly known as Garden Spiders or Writer Spiders.Son of a fuck!

[boutons_]

August 31, 2007

Got Arachnophobia? Here’s Your Worst Nightmare

By GRETEL C. KOVACH

WILLS POINT, Tex., Aug. 29 — Most spiders are solitary creatures. So the discovery of a vast web crawling with millions of spiders that is spreading across several acres of a North Texas park is causing a stir among scientists, and park visitors.

Sheets of web have encased several mature oak trees and are thick enough in places to block out the sun along a nature trail at Lake Tawakoni State Park, near this town about 50 miles east of Dallas.

The gossamer strands, slowly overtaking a lakefront peninsula, emit a fetid odor, perhaps from the dead insects entwined in the silk. The web whines with the sound of countless mosquitoes and flies trapped in its folds.

Allen Dean, a spider expert at Texas A&M University, has seen a lot of webs, but even he described this one as “rather spooky, kind of like Halloween.”

Mr. Dean and several other scientists said they had never seen a web of this size outside of the tropics, where the relatively few species of “social” spiders that build communal webs are most active.

Norman Horner, emeritus professor of biology at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Tex., was one of a number of spider experts to whom a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist sent online photos of the web. “It is amazing, absolutely amazing,” said Dr. Horner, who at first thought it an e-mail hoax.

The web may be a combined effort of social cobweb spiders. But their large communal webs generally take years to build, experts say, and this web was formed in just a few months.

Or it could be a striking example of what is known as ballooning, in which lightweight spiders throw out silk filaments to ride the air currents. Five years ago, in just that way, a mass dispersal of millions of tiny spiders covered 60 acres of clover field in British Columbia with thick webbing.

Mike Quinn, the state biologist who distributed the online photos, and who runs a Web site about Texas invertebrates, plans to drive to the park from Central Texas on Friday in an effort to get some answers by collecting samples.

Record-breaking rains that flooded Texas earlier this summer inspired outbreaks of crickets and “webworms,” the caterpillar larvae of the white moth. Mr. Quinn said the rains might have something to do with the web, too.

“You’d have to get a lot of spiders together and feed them a whole lot of food to make a web that big,” he said.

Whatever caused the vast web, the sight of it has inspired both awe and revulsion.

“It’s beautiful,” said the park’s superintendent, Donna Garde.

Freddie Gowin disagrees. It was Mr. Gowin, a maintenance worker at the park, who discovered the web this month when, taking advantage of some of the first dry weather, he mowed the area around the nature trail.

“I don’t think there’s anything pretty about it,” he said, though “it’s certainly unusual.”

When Mr. Gowin drives the power mower through the area, webbing wraps across his bare face, causing him to slap at spiders, real or imagined, crawling on his skin.

The park’s staff says that while the web has killed some leaves, it should not hurt the trees.

The spiders are “spreading out for sure,” Mr. Gowin said, pointing out cedars that appeared to have a dusting of snow. “They’re going to take over this whole point.”

The staff expects the web to last until colder weather this fall, when the spiders begin dying off.

For now the concern is to defend this marvel from teenagers who might take a stick and knock it all down, or little boys wanting to push their little sisters into it.

( fucking teenagers! useless beings! youth is wasted on the young! )

“We’ll try to protect it, with what little staff we have,” said Ms. Garde, the superintendent. “I’ll use the web-of-life analogy. If you break one part of the web, it affects us all.”

[Switchman]

We have those wasps that hunt down and drag tarantulas back to their nest for the kiddies to eat. Pretty cool.

[George Gervin's Afro]

We have those wasps that hunt down and drag tarantulas back to their nest for the kiddies to eat. Pretty cool.


nice....

[RashoFan]

Stay away from the brown recluse

Was bitten by a spider when I was in the Phillippines back in 93. Sucker got me in the back of the leg. The pocket of infection was large and it hurt to walk and sit, had to sleep on my stomach for a while. At one point, I had about 3 ft of packing gauze in my leg to help with the draining. Had that changed out twice a day of a couple of weeks and then once a day for another two weeks. That whole expierence SUCKED!!! I was lucky, other people on board my ship were bitten MULTIPLE TIMES....It sucked BADLY for them.

[pawe]

Yep, spiders in the Philippines are the shit! A spider got me in the ear and my friend had to flick it twice just to take it off away from my skin.

[DieMrBond]

Come take a visit to Australia, where we have 2 of the most deadliest spiders in the world..

The Funnel-web Spider
http://k43.pbase.com/u33/gehyra/large/35879722.Funnelweb.jpg

The Red-back Spider
http://www.hi.is/~jonask/X_03_Australia/Frett18-20/Red_Ba9.jpg

Imagine if that web was filled with these fuckers!

[ALVAREZ6]

Fuck all spiders.


Every spider should die.

[RashoFan]

Come take a visit to Australia, where we have 2 of the most deadliest spiders in the world..

The Funnel-web Spider
http://k43.pbase.com/u33/gehyra/large/35879722.Funnelweb.jpg

I must admit, that is a bad ass close up photo. Is the funnel web spider the same as the spider that has a "trap door"? I have seen when the unsuspecting prey just casually strolls by and all of the sudden this patch of dirt, leaves, debris pops open and the spider lurches toward the prey and drags it into its hole. That is a wicked clever spider!
Spiders are fascinating but I still don't like to be anywhere near them. The only ones that don't bother me so much are Daddy Long Legs....

[Ginofan]

Yep, spiders in the Philippines are the shit! A spider got me in the ear and my friend had to flick it twice just to take it off away from my skin.
My older brother has a nice little "crevice" on his leg from where he got bit. Spiders on the islands are mean little fuckers.

[Ginofan]

that should have been posted under TheTruth. Mandy has no older brothers, and has never been to the Islands.

[leemajors]

Come take a visit to Australia, where we have 2 of the most deadliest spiders in the world..

The Funnel-web Spider
http://k43.pbase.com/u33/gehyra/large/35879722.Funnelweb.jpg

The Red-back Spider
http://www.hi.is/~jonask/X_03_Australia/Frett18-20/Red_Ba9.jpg

Imagine if that web was filled with these fuckers!
that looks very similar to the most poisonous spider in america, the black widow:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/Black_Widow_Spider_Eating_Something.JPG
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/images/ency/fullsize/19582.jpg

[MrChug]

...Spider bites are the devil.

I always think that the devil is the devil.

[Ed Helicopter Jones]

The coolest spider was named Charles Smith.

[Xolotl]

Living in Texas the only one I'm afraid of is the Brown Recluse. Scared the shit out of me a few weeks ago I was paintballing and slid into a bunker and there were 3 big ass webs in there with me I don't think they were brown recluse, I didn't have time to see as I bolted to the next one after that haha.

After the game I went and shot them to hell with my gun :( I don't like killing spiders but had to be done since there are little kids out there ya know

[erbzzz2007]

i work at a pallet repair factory and there are thousands of black widow spiders where I work. I catch them and sell them to anyone who wants a pet black widow. but just for the record, the black widow is not the most venomous spider in america. The brown widow's venom is twice as potent as the black widow and the red widow is by far the most venomous of all widow spiders. Although hard to come in contact with as they only live in south florida in 3 counties. People are buying them over the internet though and breeding them so mabey in 10 years they will become more common in places like arizona, georgia, etc. this is the most venomous spider in america http://bugguide.net/images/cache/CHGHVH8HYHKLUZILUZMLBZ8LBZ8LEZIH6ZZLVHMHBHSLPZSLAH SLOH8H2ZMHDH9HZRGLBZWHTHMHGZQL5Z7HCHIH.jpg

[Phil Hellmuth]

its kind of funny how humans are just wired to not like these things for the most part.

[Barbarian]

Spiders aint shit. Now Cockroaches are different story. Cant stand those bastards. Especially those big fuckers that can fly.

[anakha]

Spiders aint shit. Now Cockroaches are different story. Cant stand those bastards. Especially those big fuckers that can fly.

Truth. Flying roaches freak me out.

By the way, roaches only tend to fly when they're high up on a wall or other structure, so the lower they are, the less people have to worry.

[CuckingFunt]

I really need to start reading the thread titles before I read the new posts. I did NOT need to see that shit.

[Silver21_Black20]

Truth. Flying roaches freak me out.

By the way, roaches only tend to fly when they're high up on a wall or other structure, so the lower they are, the less people have to worry.

I HATE roaches.

I heard only the female roaches have wings and can fly. I dunno.

[Barbarian]

Truth. Flying roaches freak me out.

By the way, roaches only tend to fly when they're high up on a wall or other structure, so the lower they are, the less people have to worry.

Wish I new that yesterday. There was a freaking giant roach on the ceiling at home and I tried killing it with my sandal. Bad Idea. That fucker started flying all over the place. I ran out of there like a little 12 yr old girl. Cant stand those things. :bang

[nkdlunch]

the web also has 12 bars, 4 vip sections, they charge $35 a spider (except hot spiders with miniskirts who get in free)

[The sone]

I hate spiders.

The other night I was at work and walking through this ladies front yard. I had my flashlight in my hand and for some reason I turned my light on in the direction I was walking to and saw a huge web....and a huge white or yellow spider in the middle of it.

Had I not turned my light on- I would have walked right into it, spider and all. I would have freaked! :lmao

For some reason, the next 1/2 half hour I kept itching all over.

I hate spiders.


que no que i like Halloween y que im down for the scaries y que im a pinche sa's finest con un pinche pistola y blah blah blah!!!

[Faccia di Angelo]

the web also has 12 bars, 4 vip sections, they charge $35 a spider (except hot spiders with miniskirts who get in free)
:lol what?

I've been hearing about these big giant white spiders by my friends apt. and my sisters house. They tell me they were really freaked out by them when they saw a couple crawling across their patios and walls. I've yet to see them but they think they are in the trees and tell me how they run everytime they walk outdoors. I am terrified of spiders ever since I heard of the brown recluse but I am also intrigued by them. Its weird. Whenever I come across one I won't kill it. I trap it so I can get a good look at it and find out what species it is. My co-workers hate that about me. lol I don't really like to kill anything in general but spiders more so than anything. They fascinate me.
(except roaches..ewwww)
Now I'm a little more cautious tho. I was recently bit by a spider about a month ago over my right eye. I woke up one morning with what looked like a pimple on my brow bone but as the day went on it grew and began to swell, itch and really hurt. My eye literally looked like I was punched. It was terrible. I assume it was a spider even tho the doctor couldn't really tell me. I applied ointment that they prescribed and my eye seemed to react. As the days went on you could see what appeared to be three dots that formed a triangle. They resembled marks that fangs would produce. It left me scarred :( People think I pierced my eyebrow and just let it close up. My friend always looks at me and comments, "that spider really got you good" :cry I don't get why. My roommate was staying in my room before I moved in and nothing ever happened to him. Then I came and he let me have it and all kinds of weird stuff come out. I have such bad luck.
So now you can bet everytime I get in bed, I shake EVERYTHING out. Its made me really paranoid. I've heard once you've been bitten by a spider it always returns back to that same spot. I do NOT want to be bit like that again. I would never want anyone to know that feeling.

[Faccia di Angelo]

que no que i like Halloween y que im down for the scaries y que im a pinche sa's finest con un pinche pistola y blah blah blah!!!
lol no que no

[cuongnet]

It was a very impressive win by the Merc.