#arachnophobia

[spidersdaily]

[stuck-in-jelly]

One of my favorite stories to tell about myself from when I was a kid is the story how my grandma’s “Catching Fairies” game was banned because of me

So when I was really little my grandma had this game she made up, she’d give me and all my cousins jars and containers and tell us that in her garden there were fairies but they were smart and tricky so they disguised themselves as caterpillars and butterflies and as grasshoppers and worms.

Whoever caught the most ‘Fairies’ won but we had to set them all free because they tended to the garden

One summer day my brothers were at the age they were dreading ‘girly’ stuff so I was playing alone

At this point I had met all the fairies in the garden and I was getting bored without any competition and with finding the same old fairies

But then just as I was begrudgingly heading back to my grandma with the same fairies as usual I found a new fairy!

I thought she was so beautiful! She was resting on the sparkly thread in the leaves and her black body gleamed in the sunlight, she had long legs and a cool red spot on her back

Excited I coaxed her onto my hand and was so giddy I found a new one! I rushed back to the farm house to show my Grandma and Dad, gently carrying my new friend.

But when my Dad and Grandma turned around to see what fairy I caught I saw the color drain from their faces and both of them freeze, I could tell something was wrong but didn’t understand

My dad congratulated me and asked me if he could see the pretty fairy, I let him but felt a little nervous seeing how terrified he looked as she moved into his hands from mine.

Slowly he walked back towards the door, my grandma clutching my shoulders then my dad LAUNCHED the fairy back into the garden which I thought was rather rude

Then we had a nice long talk about Black Widow spiders

[ms-demeanor]

That poor pest control guy did not know what he was getting into, but given the state of my yard i feel like he should have known what he was getting into.

[spiderdungeons]

i just want you to know that Axl the tarantula from Home Alone was played by a male T named Barry who was treated very well by his keeper on set, and he did not get scared of Daniel Stern screaming because they added the sound in post :)

[auckie]

[chimerarachnid]

Just a busy, little furry friend very hard at work.

[bobhasalasergun]

“Free will is a funny old thing, isn’t it John?”

This is quite old cause I sat on it for ages without posting it but I still like it a lot so here is marionette Jon

There are Many Easter eggs of various difficulties in this for anyone with the time to find any so lemme know if you do :)

[valdevia]

The Hive Tarantula (Theraphosa vesparium) enters a symbiotic bond with a swarm of wasps, allowing them to build a colony on its abdomen. The spider protects the queen and larvae, and the wasps help feed it. This mutualistic unit of tarantula and wasp, thought to be originally derived from a parasitic relationship, is extremely territorial.