Saturday, May 1, 2010

Shelob II

At the risk of terrifying my readers so much that they never come back here, I have another spider to share with you:


I encountered this old girl on the concrete steps between our basement and our backyard, underneath the Bilco doors. Her torso was smaller than the Shelob who lives on our deck, but her legs were super-long. (Note the use of past-tense here; Shelob II's life ended on the bottom of Steven's New Balance sneaker this afternoon.) I'm sure she was perfectly harmless, but she looked so damn menacing, and was hopping around all over the place when I encountered her, so I wasn't taking any chances. I'd love to find out if she really posed any threat, or if I'm guilty of taking an innocent life today. Any idea what kind of spider she was?

3 comments:

  1. Steven BlumenthalMay 1, 2010 at 10:43 PM

    There's actually a website called What's That Bug? According to them, it looks like a Fisher spider (not dangerous). Compare the pictures...

    http://www.whatsthatbug.com/2009/06/22/fishing-spider-19/&usg=__c5KWw6yyItQ6kBUI_iwk-OKL9Ww=&h=411&w=562&sz=63&hl=en&start=25&sig2=IvJAZ8xv1JluTQ7xaCcXqQ&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=8HiWDZQJuBRLaM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3DDolomedes%2Bspider%26start%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=JOXcS7yyFcKC8garp7zeBw

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  2. Oh yeah, that's her alright! Good to know that she wasn't capable of maiming me. I'll be merciful if I encounter any of her relatives in the future. I just hope they aren't all so spastic!

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  3. I don't know if I would have been thinking to take a picture.

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