Very funny spider story!

[Neurozool]

I have been to Guatemala three times. We hike up to remote villages to provide medical care. The villages usually let us use the church to sleep in. This is where the great part comes in! You have to understand that we take three or four teenage girls with us, and I think, other then me, everyone HATES small things with legs, especially spiders. Right before going to sleep the girls start screaming bloody murder! There were spiders all in their hair- let me tell you, I have NEVER seen anything like this before (the girls and the spiders) It turned out that they were all slings. As everyone's eyes turned upward, they saw to 'their' horror, and my immense enjoyment- 40 or so egg sacs, almost simultaneously, hatching and streaming down one everyone. I think a herd of wildebeest feeling a pride of lions could not move as fast as these people. Just thinking about it makes my sides hurt!

 

[rmlee]

I picture your story as a bunch of kids running and screaming for their lives while you stand in the middle of the room.
Your smiling face looks to the ceiling with arms outstretched embracing them.
A camera pans around you in slo mo.

 

[Neurozool]

I picture your story as a bunch of kids running and screaming for their lives while you stand in the middle of the room.
Your smiling face looks to the ceiling with arms outstretched embracing them.
A camera pans around you in slo mo.

LMAO!!! Ya, it was something like that!! You just can't laugh hard enough at people running screaming from a spider the size smaller then a dime.

A similar experience happened in Australia, but with cane toads. It was a 'toad race' All the toads were placed in a upside down bucket in the middle of a DRAWN ring. Whichever toad got out of the ring first wins. Guess who was the ONLY person (including the zoo personal) who went to catch the toads before they escaped. LOL They looked at me like I was a crazy person-good thing I am

 

[problemchildx]

Haha, great stories. I wish I had the opportunity to go to places like that.
As far as the slings, I would probably be freaking out. As tolerant I am to spiders than most people I know, hatching broods of spiders running all over me would definitely freak me out. Maybe not my arms or legs, but in my hair is a different story.

What kinds of spiders were they?

 

[Neurozool]

What kinds of spiders were they?

I really don't know...but it did seem odd that they all seemed to hatch at once...has anyone ever heard of this???

I was just a spider lover at that point, and didn't know how to ID them (or the other WAY cool spider I saw there) But there were multiple sacs all over the ceiling...could it have been from one or two females? I know my A. aurantia has 5 already....hmmmmmmmm

 

[problemchildx]

That's the thing that especially sends shivers down my spine. Seems like something that would happen in a movie LOL. All the eggs hatching at once.. I see how it is possible though.
You say your female has 5 eggsacs right now? Hmm.. I didn't know that was possible :? Cool!

 

[Neurozool]

You say your female has 5 eggsacs right now? Hmm.. I didn't know that was possible :? Cool!

Ya..early in the summer I saw a little male with a small web in the corner of hers..he was only there a day or two. Not long after that she got big, stopped eating, stopped taking care of her web. One day I walked out and there it was-suspended in a mass of fiberous threads. Her web was respun and when I placed a moth on it, she ran down, right to my hand, and ate it while I watched...hungry?? lol

She has been repeating the cycle all summer, I'm not sure, but I think that she has been able to produce so many is that I keep feeding her, even when she gets catches of her own.

 

[Cocoa-Jin]

ok, that would send me screaming too!