Be Excellent To Each Other

Does anyone actually know why they're all so BIG this year?!

Also, hello again everyone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msih79ZrO20


Hello again

They want to eat you, and are trying to achieve the appropriate size.

I disagree Mr Dave. I don't think they want to eat Tam, merely harm her to the point of death.

Hi Tam!

They're not. They're just nearer...

At least they're not venomous. That's one thing I don't miss about the states.
Cotton mouths, Black widows, Brown recluses and wolf spiders (which are relatively harmless but scary none the less).

haven't noticed any. Maybe this country has been sterilized

We can but hope RuySan

I like those spiders that hide in burrows

Like this guy

Those are cool. Are those the ones that wire up trip lines for passing mice and stuff?

There's a spider that pulls little stones around it's burrow, wraps silk around them and ties one to each leg. That way when one 'goes off' he knows exactly where to pounce and what direction.

I spent the whole of last summer explaining to my niece why she shouldn't kill spiders. When she asked why I said "because they're like the bin collectors. They get rid of all the horrible useless crap"

Flies, Mosquitoes etc. All the crap (like wasps) that serve absolutely no purpose to man whatsoever.

Now she spends half her life watching Animal planet & Nat Geo wild. I trained her well

These are the ones that I used to find on my bedroom floor of a morning. One time I went away to Virginia for a holiday and when I came back a week later there were 8 dead ones on the bedroom floor.
Theyre slightly venomous, but the most scary part is their ability to jump just as you're about to shoo them out or pick them up in a dustpan to take them outside.

Wasps are ace. They make mad nests out of wood, they eat mainly garden badguy insects, and they don't take no shit from no-one.

yes, but your niece could have replied: But spiders are way more disgusting.

Really, i prefer to not sleep properly with a fly making noises near my ear than having spiders or centipedes around.

JC: did you lived in New Jersey or in the middle of the Amazon?

Wolf spiders are very common in NJ. As are black widows and recluses. There aren't any poisonous snakes there however but Ohio has a few (cotton mouth, copperheads etc).

The barn we had used to be loaded up with widows in the summer.. So you have to learn fast.

i live in paradise, it seems. I'm not going near the US anytime soon.

That'll be a trapdoor spider. They are indeed excellent, little sinister ambush killers. They make a little lid out of silk and earth to hide under too, sometimes with their legs sticking out to detect movement on their little web. There's also a type of parastici wasp that paralyses thema nd lays its eggs in the spider's abdomen, then when they hatch, they eat the spider alive. I like bringing up graphic descriptions of this when people start banging on about how birth is a beautiful miracle and not, for example, just another interesting but hideous and unpleasant biological function.

There's also a type of spider called the bola spider that makes a little sticky balls of web on a string and swings it round its head before flinging it at its prey, then drags them in to eat them. And one that eats birds. And a type of termite that doesn't bite or sting, but instead explodes violently. And slugs that mate while bungee jumping. And moths that are born, mate, and die while migrating, never seeing either of their natural habitats.

Bugs are amazing.

Oh, but wasps are pure evil. They are truly sadistic little shits. They kill a lot of pests, yeah, but fuck them, I say. They know I'm onto them, too - they sent assassins after me three times last year in the middle of the night. Fortunately, they made the assumption that I slept at night, the fools.

I love the Net-Casting Spiders most.

Wasps are, indeed, evil little shits.

Oh yes. Great picture, too. You can just imagine her barely stifling a snigger, can't you?

It looks like a coathanger

Take note Dr Gaywood, it could be an invaluable travel companion for you.

Yes, we've all read that Calvin and Hobbes.

http://conservationreport.com/2008/10/2 ... ting-bird/

*shudders*

Ha! I really should get round to reading one of those one of these days, shouldn't I?

I did a "ten minute talk" on trap door spiders in year 4. Took great delight in making everyone go "eeeeeugh".

Big this year you say?

Grasshopper, my front garden, last year:



If they're getting bigger than *that* we're going to have to buy some nukes.

When I got back from Menorca my kitchen was full of huge Ants

About seven years ago I was stood at a bus stop on a lovely sunny evening waiting to go home. A rather panicked little black fly, about the size of a raisin, flew right at my face and began bashing itself against glass behind me. Immediately following it was a wasp. They engaged in a tight arced dog fight in the corner of the shelter for a few seconds before the wasp, seemingly determined to end this right now, darted in and stung the fly. It dropped straight the ground and the wasp flew down after it, whereupon the wasp expertly snipped its head off and zipped off with it. It was excellent. I found a new respect for wasps that day but am stil not averse to bashing one with a newspaper if it gets stuck in my bedroom.

Are you sure?

Yes

That must have been a right buzz.

Really sure?

It was(p).

The correct answer was 'adamant', natch.

The correct answer was shut the fuck up.

I would have also accepted that, yes.

Ants. Fuckers.

(Also: weeds)

Whatever happened to hornets? They were all the rage when I were a lad, and now nobody's banging on about them. Outside Carolina.

They were like wasps, but proper evil. I think they had red on them, and the lot.

I've seen a couple this year. Mostly half asleep though, and I killed them dead. Nasty bastards, and huge.

Don't think I've ever seen one.

I can't read page one due to the pictures of spiders. No spider pictures please. K thx bye!

Of course, they technically shouldn't be in "Aaargh! Insects!" anyway.

Split them out into a new thread called "Aaargh-achnids!" then

Struggled a bit at the start of this season and getting rid of Aidy Boothroyd looked like a bit of a panic move, but Brendan Rogers arrived, brought in a couple of kids on lone and a big clodhopping centre-back from Wycombe and steadied the ship nicely. Now Rogers has bogged off to Reading and the club's finances are decidedly uncertain so what's going to happen next year is anybody's guess, although it looks more likely we'll leave the division going down rather than up.

Thanks for taking an interest, though.

Wasps are fucking scum. Spiders keep themselves to themselves as long as they're not threatened, wasps are like shaven-headed yobs outside city centre nightclubs. There was a wasps' nest in my shed last year, it looked like a Chinese hanging lantern. I called pest control and they said a spider must have infiltrated it and killed the queen if it wasn't getting any larger. I noticed another one in there the other day, I hope my arachnid allies don't let me down. I'm scared to look inside.

So yay for spiders.

That would be absolutely awesome. Spy-ders indeed.

What's it supposed to do? Wait around at the entrance to the nest with a large fake moustache on, going "ay ay! I am not from roun' 'ere senor! I need use lavatory yes?"

Pretty much. With a yellow & black stripy jumper on.

I'd watch that film. Or play that game, even. Fucking hell, imagine how much fun that would be, not only being a spider, but fighting wasps in their own nest. Sneak around, clinging to the ceiling like in aliens vs. predator, stifling a giggle as you shout "Buzz!" every now and then, and waiting for an opportunity to corner another drone and bite the shit out the bugger when nobody's looking.

WANT.