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SYDNEY (AP) — With fangs that could pierce a human fingernail, the largest male specimen of the world’s most venomous arachnid has found a new home at the Australian Reptile Park where it will help save lives after a member of the public discovered it by chance. The deadly Sydney funnel-web spider dubbed “Hercules” was found on the Central Coast, about 50 miles north of Sydney, and was initially given to a local hospital, the Australian Reptile Park said in a statement Thursday. Spider experts from the nearby park retrieved it and soon realized it was the largest male specimen...

Some spiders will die when cold weather hits, but scientists warn an invasive species from Asia may survive and continue to invade the US. Scientists at the University of Georgia froze more than two dozen of the eight-inch-long Jorō spiders spotted on the East Coast to see if the black and yellow creatures could survive the harsh winters. The experiment showed nearly 75 percent of the spiders were unaffected, with the rest showing some injuries. The Jorō spider's golden web took over yards all over northern Georgia in 2021, unnerving some residents, and was soon spotted in South Carolina and...

A web-like substance was seen falling from the skies across the Central Coast Wednesday morning. The sticky and fluffy substance has been seen falling in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. It is reminiscent of spider silk, but that has not been confirmed to be the source. Wednesday's winds were coming from the east across the mountains. So far, the substance was reported in Hollister, Santa Cruz, Salinas and Monterey. If you have seen the substance falling, you can send photos and videos to KSBW by uploading them here: ksbw.com/upload.

An Austrian supermarket reopened following a three-day closure to clear the store due to an alleged sighting of a spider with a deadly bite that could also cause an hourslong erection. The Penny Markt in Krems an der Donau closed Tuesday after the store manager spotted the spider in a banana box and immediately called the fire brigade to investigate. The manager described the spider as about 4 inches long and colored black and red. The authorities initially suspected it was a banana spider, but previous cases of spiders in bananas from South America have identified the spider specifically as...

Texas border patrol agents rescued seven endangered baby spider monkeys that were smuggled inside a backpack over the southern border. Video from an arrest in Brownsville on Thursday shows officials opening the bag and finding the monkeys huddled together. “Aw, poor babies,” one of the agents says. The monkeys were seized from a juvenile offender, who stuffed the simians inside a backpack that had holes poked in it to allow them to breathe, officials said. “This case highlights the lengths smugglers will go to maximize profits with no regard for the lives of migrants or animals,” said Gloria Chavez, the...

U.S. U.S. Border Patrol agents discover 7 "critically endangered" spider monkeys huddled inside migrant's backpack BY STEPHEN SMITH AUGUST 4, 2023 / 11:58 AM / CBS NEWS U.S. Border Patrol agents made a surprising discovery last weekend when they arrested a migrant carrying a backpack filled with seven spider monkeys, federal authorities said. Agents found the monkeys on Sunday when a Mexican juvenile was apprehended in Brownsville, Texas, which is on the U.S.-Mexico border, officials said in a statement. The Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley Sector posted a video on Facebook showing the monkeys huddled inside a bag that appeared...

A photo of a huge spider hanging from a roof has sparked concern, with some joking that the homeowner should move out. A concerned man in Baldivis, 45km south of Perth, shared the scary image on a local Facebook community group and asked for help identifying the mammoth arachnid. It shows the spider sitting in a web with its long pointed legs curled up under a bulky dark abdomen, as if it is ready to pounce. The original poster described it as 'one of the biggest I've seen'.

Image credit: Science Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo Look at this lanky orange hellspawn. I’m going to go ahead and say that we are not buying whatever it’s selling. We’ve got enough problems without having to contemplate the motivations of this faceless alien baby. Meet the giant Antarctic sea spider (Decolopoda australis), seen here absolutely dwarfing a European sea spider. An example of gigantism, wherein an animal grows unusually large due to a lack of predators and other factors that would limit their size, the Antarctic sea spider can grow to more than 30cm in diameter (about the length...

Cutting heart attacks, strokes possible even in young adults with poor cardiovascular health “Usually, if the donor heart has stopped beating for more than 30 minutes before retrieval, the heart can’t be used,” Macdonald said. “Even if we can buy an extra 10 minutes, that could make the difference between someone having a heart and someone missing out. For people who are literally on death’s door, this could be life-changing.” Spiders aren’t the only venomous creatures being studied for medical purposes. A diagnostic drug in development uses the potent venom of the Israeli deathstalker scorpion and an infrared dye to...

Canberra's Deep Space Communications Complex is one of the world's most powerful means of looking into the depths of the Solar System. So it would make sense that an alien spider the size of a football field would target it in its initial invasion of planet Earth. That's not what happened, but that's what it looked like for a brief moment. A security camera fixed on the giant antenna at Tidbinbilla had an unwelcome pedestrian atop it. A huntsman crawled over the lens, making it seem like it was dwarfing the 34-metre wide deep space antenna. "When mission scientists decided...

(Alvesgaspar/Wikimedia commons/CC BY-SA 3.0) =============================================================== A tiny brown invasive species of spider that's creeping its way across the UK has a dangerous reputation for dissolving flesh, one that many experts have argued isn't deserved. There's now compelling evidence suggesting that stories of the false widow spider (Steatoda nobilis) causing horrid skin infections has at least some basis in fact. The false widow has called the UK home ever since it was spotted on its shores in the 1870s, most likely having hitched a ride from Madeira and the Canary Islands off the African coast. In recent decades its range has...

Tiny and vividly-coloured, Maratus spiders are unique to Australia and have proved an Internet hit where videos of their elaborate courtship dances with added music and photoshopped accessories have clocked millions of views. At just 22 years old Joseph has now described a total of 12 species of Peacock Spiders, having previously described five in 2019. Despite growing up terrified of spiders, Joseph became fascinated by them over time and has already proven himself a world leader in Maratus research. In his previous research, Joseph was sent specimens to identify by a dedicated spider-loving community of the not-for-profit Project Maratus...

A poisonous spider bite in the hill country has turned into a lengthy legal battle between two men. The case has now made it all the way to the Texas Supreme Court. The drama began in December 2014, when Henry McCall, a caretaker on an Airbnb property in Fredericksburg was bit by a brown recluse spider... McCall filed a lawsuit against the property owner Homer Hillis, who claimed he should be liable for his suffering since he didn’t warn him of the possible danger at the property. Homer Hillis is taking the case to the Texas Supreme Court. He argues...

Posted on a Facebook group called Tasmanian insects and spiders, the photos of the hairy huntsman spider is making headlines around the world. These viral photos are not for the faint-hearted. It shows a giant spider trying to eat a very small possum:It makes one wonder if the many-legged beast could make it away with a human baby – let's hope not! That doesn’t mean that you won’t find one in your flat or in the car. The Australian Museum states: “Huntsman spiders of many species sometimes enter houses. They are also notorious for entering cars, and being found hiding...

A spider scare landed a woman's van in a river. An unidentified Georgia woman was backing her Kia van down a boat ramp to put her kayak in a river in Kingston, about 56 miles north of Atlanta, on Sunday when she was startled by an unwanted visitor. A spider suddenly jumped in her lap, according to a Georgia State Patrol press release. Frightened, the woman said she jumped out of the vehicle without putting it in park. The van then rolled into the Etowah River, floated downstream a few feet and then became "totally submerged," the department said. A...

May 8 (UPI) -- A Chinese doctor shared video of the unusual cause of a patient's ear discomfort -- a spider building a nest inside his head. The video filmed at a hospital in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, shows the inside of an ear belonging to a patient identified by the surname Li. Li came into the hospital complaining of discomfort in his ear and the doctor looked inside to discover a small spider was building a nest inside the man's ear canal. The doctor said the spider was too small and fast to be grabbed using tools, but hospital staff...

Police in Western Australia have confirmed they sent multiple officers to an emergency call that turned out to be a screaming man with a “serious fear” of spiders. A concerned passerby was walking outside a house in suburban Perth when they heard a toddler screaming and a man repeatedly shouting “Why don’t you die?” After they called triple zero, officers arrived to find a man “trying to kill a spider”, who apologised for having an extreme fear of the arachnid. “Caller walked past the AA and heard a male screaming out ‘Why don’t you die’ – repeatedly,” the log read....

On a summer night in 2017, Chen Zhanqi made a curious find in his lab in China’s Yunnan province. In an artificial nest, he spotted a juvenile jumping spider attached to its mother in a way that reminded him of a baby mammal sucking its mother’s teats. On closer inspection, the spider mom really seemed to be doting on her young, he says. “She had to invest so much in caring for the baby.” Further study by Chen and Quan Rui-Chang, behavioral ecologists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Center for Integrative Conservation in Menglunzhen, confirmed the jumping spider females...

Known as the Known as the bunny harvestman, the peculiar-looking spider was photographed and filmed by natural scientist Andreas Kay during a recent trip to the depths of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. At first glance, it's easy to dismiss the arachnid - which features a dog-like snout and ears - as a hoax, however it turns out that this is in fact a genuine species and yes - it does actually look like that., the peculiar-looking spider was photographed and filmed by natural scientist Andreas Kay during a recent trip to the depths of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador....

The world’s oldest known spider has died at the age of 43, outliving its nearest rival by 15 years, Australian scientists have reported. Affectionately known as “Number 16”, the female Giaus Villosus or trapdoor spider had been under observation in the wild since its birth in 1974. The arachnid is believed to have survived for so long by sticking to one protected burrow its entire life and expending the minimum of energy.