Last Saturday afternoon, I killed the largest Huntsman Spider I've ever seen. It was the "Stone Cold" Steve Austin of Huntsmans. A Kodiak Bear of Huntsmans. Think undiscovered Central American jungles, B-grade horror, Spiderman shaking uncontrollably and ordering another whiskey, Little Miss Muffet in a psychiatric hospital for years...
It was too hard to get the thing out the back door with the careers section from the Sydney Morning Herald, so I had to resort to rolling up much of the paper and whacking the beast. I never feel great about killing spiders, but I was worried about this one snarling and snapping at a family member.
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There are heaps of spiders lurking about at the moment - House Spiders between fence palings, Wolf Spiders prowling the concrete, Jumping Spiders waiting in ambush on rose petals, Daddy Longlegs hangin' with dozens of babies, White-tailed Spiders trying to shake off their horrid reputations and a member of genus Dolophones, which is incredibly well camouflaged against the mottled green-grey-white trunks of our backyard blossoms and retreats with the speed of an edgy Sailfish when scared (the effect of this is odd; a section of the tree looks as if it's shifting and one wonders whether one is hallucinating).
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(The title quote above is from The Cure's early 90s hit Lullaby).
LJ, December 9 2010
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