Patriot Paradox
Posted on 08/27/2004 6:42:39 AM PDT by Leatherneck_MT
Oh yeah. We will send attack spiders from Chicago to get them!
Cool summer in Midwest leads to bigger spiders
Thursday August 26, 2004
By LISA SCHENCKER
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) Midwestern spiders always get big as they prepare to lay eggs, but this year they're even fatter thanks to a cool, wet summer that sustained their favorite snack insects.
``Right now they're eating like kings,'' said Field Museum entomologist Petra Sierwald. ``They're having a very good time.''
People throughout the Midwest are noticing the corpulent arachnids everywhere from bushes to the windows of high-rise buildings.
Randall Deutsch said lately he's noticed armies of spiders clinging to the outside of office windows where he works as an architect.
``It's one of the strangest things to see spiders on upper floors,'' said Deutsch, 43, of Winnetka. ``Maybe they're trying to escape the city and heat like everyone else.''
Former high-rise window washer Russell Hendericks said he's seen workers drop their tools when spiders crawl on their hands.
``Spiders don't bother me, but my partner is petrified,'' said Hendericks, who took over as owner of H & M Window Cleaning and Building Maintenance in Chicago this month. ``He goes home and takes a bath and has them in his hair.''
Donald Webb, an entomologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, said spiders are often plentiful and plump this time of year.
``There's usually more spiders this time of year because there are more insects out,'' Webb said. ``There's just more food out there for them.''
But just how many are there, and how fat are they? Entomologists say it's hard to pinpoint exact numbers.
The rule of thumb is that no one anywhere is ever more than 3 feet away from a spider, Sierwald said. There are also 899 known spider species in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. People just don't notice the creepy crawlers as much until they fatten up near the end of summer.
Each fall, female spiders can double in size as they prepare to lay eggs. Some spiders, such as female argiopes, which are common to Illinois, can grow as long as 2 inches. Argiopes spin large, orb-like webs and can be found in bushes, prairies and well-kept yards.
Other spiders, such as jumping spiders, range in size from tiny to half an inch long and often sneak into people's houses.
Most spiders in the Midwest will lay their eggs from now through October and then hibernate or die, Sierwald said.
For spider haters, the bad news is that before they die, spiders will lay anywhere from 50 to 1,000 eggs a piece.
Out of those eggs, however, only one or two spiders will survive to maturity a sad fact for spider lovers such as Boyce Tankersley, 48.
Tankersley, an avid gardener from Grayslake who works at the Chicago Botanic Garden, said spiders are a great way to control the insects in his quarter-acre garden.
``My grapevines have got some nice spiders that live on them every year,'' Tankersley said. ``I wish I had more spiders on my raspberries.''
Others, however, will not be as heartbroken to see the sizable spiders go.
``They give me the heebie-jeebies,'' said Colleen Murphy, 43, of Arlington Heights as she relaxed near a bench in Chicago's Millennium Park. ``My brothers used to throw them at me when I was little.''
This spider also had thin black hair. If this hair touches the human body, within a short period of time the body becomes black or blue, and then there is an explosion in the blood cells in the human body - and the person dies."
The American soldiers left, holding the legs of this spider, and I too, in one of the Friday sermons, held up a spider, with all its magnitude, in front of the satellite channels and in front of the world.
Uh, neat trick...I guess the Power of Allah protected you from turning blue and having all your blood cells explode, right?
If you accept that the whole Muslim movement (not a religion) is a myth, then this is just their version of the "Flying Monkeys"
Roar! Roar!
This is what Kerry said he used on the spiders in Vietnam
Saw Brit Hume report on this a day or so ago. He chuckled as he was reading this item.
The silhouette on the can looks like a
black widow.
They have 'red-back' spiders in Australia,
which are quite similar to widows (at least
to a lay person's view).
Are there black widows in Viet Nam?
I honestly think that that's the best spider movie to date.
Even.........with.........BillShatnerintheleadrole.
A friend of mine was walking around in Saigon one day and said that he saw a spider up in a utility pole with a body that looked like a baseball.
Allah must be pretty cool to keep all those Giant Spiders in one room and the 72 Virgins in the next room --- better keep the doors closed tight!
You'll have to ask Kerry. He was there!>)
It's amazing what people will believe. I read the whole article, it was the most egregious example of 'black helicopter journalism' that I have ever seen.
That said, glad we don't have to tangle with Camel Spiders (which are real, big, fast, carnivorous and really agressive) here. Iraq is supposed to be full of 'em.
Thw 72 Virgins really dig those kind of Spiders btw
Yeah Camel Spiders are THE boogie man in my opinion lol. They give me the willies just thinking about them.
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