I know this has to be the biggest BS story I've ever heard.

Valael

Arachnodemon
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Well, at work today I was telling someone about my pets...(Of course, everyone thinks I'm a freak, but hey...I guess it's the price you pay for being smarter than the average idiot -- Sorry, I don't hold much love for people who aren't willing to look at them and realize they're harmless) When she came up with a story that..well..you'll see.

Basically, she said her husband's friend used to live in Texas. He heard this story (It supposedly happened while he lived there *cough*bs*cough*) that some guy was sun bathing in his backyard. He felt something crawling on him and slapped it, killing it in the process. (Without knowing it was a tarantula.)

Nothing suprising, right? Well..Here's where it gets bad. Supposedly, all of the other tarantulas (Because they all live together in big colonies, of course) came to it's defense (That or they used their wonderful sense of smell that they use to hunt food down) and basically covered the man, killing him with their bites.




Sorry if this is unreadable, it's late and I just got off of work. Just makes me mad that idiots spread such nonsense.
 

Code Monkey

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Every person should be required by law to have successfully passed a biology, chemistry, and physics class before they're allowed to hold a job, drive a car, or do anything where I, and the rest of the mostly-conscious human beings out there, might have to interact with them ;)

The truth is out there, shame these idiots are looking for it on the X-Files.
 

Jobe

Arachnoknight
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Heh heh, they say everythings bigger in Texas :)

Mebe the dude slapped a really big ant and tought it was a T...heh heh...


jokin all...
:D
 
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MrT

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What a load of crap.

The problem is, most people who hear stuff like that beleive it.:( :(

E
 

Vayu Son

Avatar of Anansi
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><

If it wasnt easy to both stereotype humans and animals based on hearsay and bias, as well as create hysteria based on local myths and fables, then the average intelligence would go up up up and there would be about 6 million + 4 generations of jews still alive today.

Ignorance = Stupidity. Stupidity = Less talk, more sex.

Less talk, more sex = Greater differential net reproduction

and thus ignorance is bred and naturally selected for creating an unstoppable chain of events that will inevitably lead to either the destruction of humans by humans or a fascist regime led by C_M and his yerbas.


-Oracle V
 

Jobe

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Agreed Voyu San :)

Heres another :

"Imagine how stupid the AVERAGE person is,
Then realise that half of the are dumber than that!"
-George Carlin

=D
 

veronyka

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Oh man, what a crock of bull! :rolleyes: You'd think, if tarantulas could live in colonies, I wouldn't have 12 separate cages all over my bedroom! :D Hehe, but I get the same thing at work too, people will tell me they saw a tarantula in the garage and kill it, then they are scared they will find more after that! In all my 30 years in California, I have never seen a tarantula just running loose in the house (unless someone had owned one). But anyway, yeah it just feeds into most people's arachnophobia, which I think is ridiculous, that that many people are afraid of a little spider. I think the poor spider is more afraid than anything! We gotta stop this stupidity from spreading :D:D
 

bness2

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Now that one takes the cake! I'm with Code on this one, everyone should have enough science in college to at least learn enough skepticism to question a story like that. Of course, I've had people swear up and down they've been cow tipping, know that the 75 pound cat exists and that the story about the lady drying her poodle in the microwave are true, so what can you expect?

I teach a general studies science class to all those college students who are not science majors. You would be suprised at the amount of ignorance displayed by some of my students. Then again, maybe you wouldn't :)

Maybe the guy slapped a tarantula and the fire ants discovered it, and by the time anyone found him he was covered in welts and had died heat exhaustion. =D =D

What did W. C. Fields say? There's a sucker born every minute? Or was that P. T. Barnum?

Bryan
 

atavuss

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aaaha! could this be the start of another urban legend!?
I imagine everyone here has heard the "exploding cactus" story, eh?
Ed
 

JacenBeers

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I dont see why you guys are mocking that story so badly? The same thing happened to me up here in Canada. I was walking on a forest trail in winter when a Snowy Baboon Tarantula fell from a tree and landed on my arm. It was all white because they change white in the winter and they are black in the summer. Anyways, I squished it and suddenly they were falling from the trees like snowflakes coming after me in defense of their friend. This is a fact. Search for the elusive Beltunata canadensis in your research on teh subject. They are vicious arboreals native to cold canadian areas.
 

bness2

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Originally posted by atavuss
I imagine everyone here has heard the "exploding cactus" story, eh?
Ed
You mean it isn't true!!?? :? :? =D =D :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I did hear one about a guy who was shooting at a saguaro and one of the branches snapped off, fell on him and killed him. It was obviously a case of self-defense. LOL
 

The_Phantom

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That sounds like a scene from the movie "night of the tarantulas" starring will shatner. Its a HORRIBLE movie becuz the tarantula squishing LOOKS REAL !!! I hate that movie !

HAS ANYONE SEEN THIS MOVIE !????
 

bness2

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I have not seen the movie in question, but I still have vivid memories of when I was about 4 or 5 years old and my father was watching some science fiction movie with giant ants. I was terrified and he wouldn't turn it off. I think my mom finally made him turn it off, after I was in tears. It never made me fear ants, but I have had a mild fear of spiders, which has been somewhat overcome since owning my first T and gets better with each new one.

People should never let their kids watch these kinds of movies. There are enough ways already to develop fears about insects and arachnids.

Bryan
 

skinheaddave

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A friend of mine is a PhD candidate who has the misfortune of being a Teachers Assistant for ZOO*1500. This is the course that you take if you are not a biology major (in fact, biology majors can't even take it for credit). One of the assignments he has had to mark is a review of a popular science article. The point is to try to get students to realize that popular articles contain essentialy no scientificaly backed facts. What he gets are a lot of papers talking about the potential political bias of the scientists, etc. etc. Nobody seems to realize that the political bias of the scientist can't shine through if not a single real fact from his research has been presented.

Cheers,
Dave
 

Al Muoio

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The Trojen Catus

Someone at work told me about this woman that bought a catus plant. When she came home from work she had hundreds of T's running around her house and all over the walls.
 

Code Monkey

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Re: The Trojen Catus

Originally posted by Al Muoio
Someone at work told me about this woman that bought a catus plant. When she came home from work she had hundreds of T's running around her house and all over the walls.
If only you could actually be so lucky. You'd get a cactus, some new members for your own collection, and enough trade/sales fodder to expand the rest of your collection, all for the price of the cactus. What a deal :)

At least this woman didn't need to have the fire department/Fish and Game/Mulder show up and rescue her like with most of these rabid cacti tarantula infestations ;)
 
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Joy

Priestess of Pulchra-tude
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Originally posted by Code Monkey
Every person should be required by law to have successfully passed a biology, chemistry, and physics class before they're allowed to hold a job, drive a car, or do anything where I, and the rest of the mostly-conscious human beings out there, might have to interact with them ;)



Dear CM,

I heartily agree and would add they should have to do this plus pass some kind of a minimum competency exam before they're allowed to REPRODUCE.

Joy
 

Immortal_sin

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I meant to post this after I got back from the vet's office on Saturday, so here is a good topic to post it in.
I was telling the vet that I have tarantulas, and his assistant was standing there. She tells me that she is terrified of them because:
...she was down in Texas in the desert when a tarantula JUMPED up out of a hole in the ground (here she demonstrates with her hand, a motion that encompassess about 2' of vertical movement LOL), and it was 'this big' (again, showing me with her hands that it was larger than the largest T blondi ever recorded)
I told her I didn't believe a word of it. I laughed at her...I couldn't help it! She STILL insisted on the jumping, and on the size.
I told her she should have caught it, since she would have the largest jumping tarantula in the world, and that she would make the Guinness record book.
Just goes to show that when people are frightened, EVERYTHING is bigger, meaner, jumps further, and is more vicious. I'm sure her perspective was skewed, but the amazing thing is I gave her facts, and she didn't want to hear them.
'That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it'!!!!
 
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