There I was picking cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes and eggplants, merrily checking off this that that from the list. I was blissful in my servitude until I stumbled upon Shelob herself. A demon spider that was at least 10 feet long. Ok, 10 feet or three inches but it was really big. Just for scale the fence strakes are 2 inches apart.
DAMN YOU SAMWISE GAMGEE - WHY DIDN'T YOU FINISH THE JOB WHEN YOU HAD THE CHANCE!!!!!!!!!
This is no normal spider, it's big and I even got a picture of it shooting it's white jagged lighting ray of icky spider death. Look at the picture as it nearly cost me my life. It also has some form of mind control capabilities - just after catching sight of this horror I was overcome with a desire to leave the garden.
Hmmmm, maybe there was something more to my wife's insistence that my insurance policy be updated....
SPIDER UPDATE!!!!!!!!
I decided to use the Web to find out what kind of spider I have in the Garden (thank you Al Gore!). I was sure it was either some form of man-eating, venom shooting, irradiated mutation with name like "Death Stalker"or "Widow-Maker". I'm pretty sure I've seen one of them face Godzilla in one of those movies from the 60's.
Deftly my fingers searched the web, google-fu in full contact mode and I discovered the species -"Argiope Aurantia" better known as the "Yellow Garden Spider". The spider is harmless to man (if one doesn't count causing the heebie-geebies as harmful) and are viewed as a good thing to have in the garden as they are voracious eaters of pests.
Kind of a let down, isn't it. While a Argiope Aurantia is viewed as a "good spider", it's still damn big!
15 comments:
Holy frak thats big... shudder. Sorry, i'm not a spider person. Is it a poisonous variety (excuse my ignorance)?
When I first got into wargaming about 20 years ago I had a a WFB undead army which included a giant spider. The model was Games Workshop, 100% white metal, cost a small fortune, and was about the same size as a real Tarantula. It was awsome in battle, but I didn't like looking at it on the games table. Just remembering it gives me a cold shiver down my spine (what a whimp!).
Wow
Wow - that is a pretty awesome photo - great timing. Something that would be in Nat'l Geographic or something. Regards, Dean
Wow, that is a rather large looking beastie, no wonder you retreated
WOW indeed...
Alan
Terrifying! Poisonous species round your parts? Definitely time to settle those nerves with a little painting.
Phyl
Http://infrequentwargamer.blogspot.com/
She´s lovely...you are lucky to se such a nice example. great pic..thanks
Cheers
paul
Yikes!! Awesome storytelling though. :)
Creative storytelling and yes indeed that is big!
Christopher
Big? Nah, that aint big Miles! Here Down Under we have these spiders that will carry off your kids when you aren't looking. And that's if a dingo doesn't get them first! And you cant chase them into the bush to get them back because of all the poisonous snakes. And God forbid you go swimming - because of all the sharks. Much better to just stay inside and paint my models....
:-)
Great looking specimen. We have them occasionally at our house here in Mississippi. Always nice to look at. At least you didn't get surprised by a 2.5' snake trying crawl into your garage! Of course Severus (as my wife dubbed it - Severus the Snake) was just a king snake who is one of the best type of snake to have around as they eat rodents and other, poisonous snakes.
Jim
We have a lot of ones just like that where I live. On their back they have some white markings that look just like a skull. I also thought that they had to be some sort of deadly venomous spider. Something like "Death Skull Spider". It turns out that it is non-venomous, and is called a banana spider or the Golden silk orb-weaver.
Funniest post on a wargaming blog ever.
Definitely a BSS. (Big Scary Spider)
My missus would have left the continent by now if she'd seen that... :o))
They are quite friendly and will eat gunk out of your hand, until the day they discover your hand tastes better than the gunk you were feeding them!
Just saying...
Regards
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