The pic on the other thread with the guy and the spider reminds me of something that happened to me in Florida. My Ex wife and I flew down for a wedding, being our first time there we were doin the tourist thing around the Kissimee area. We found this little place that rented airboats and though that would be cool! So away we go in our "airboat". Basically a 12' aluminum boat with a 2hp lawnmower engine hooked up to a fan. Well it wasnt quite the machine I was hopeing for but I guess they cant rent out big fast ones to tourists! So we went up this little...river...bayou...slew, whatever you want to call it keeping our eyes peeled hoping to see an alligator or something. The wife decided it was her turn to operate so she gets in the drivers seat and we take off at a mindblowing 3 kph! I spotted this tree hanging over the water that looked kinda odd, looked like it was covered in that angel hair stuff you get at Xmas, so I told her to head the boat in that direction. As we got closer I saw a HUGE freakin spider very similar to the one in the aforementioned pic. I take a closer look and see that the ENTIRE tree (that we are still headed straight for) is COMPLETELY covered in web and thousands of these things! Im now getting somewhat panicked and tell her to throw the boat in reverse! Our boat did not have reverse! Luckily we had just enough space to make a real sharp turn and miss the lowest branches by two feet! I feel nausious just thinking about it! YUCK! So can anyone in florida tell me what kind o spiders these were? Are these a common occurence down there? I tell ya I would have sh*t a brick had we run into that tree and have 20 or 30 of those things falling on our heads!

ROFLMAO, forget the name of them, but the are common, and are not dangerous, very few amirican spiders are

did they look like this?
http://sofia.usgs.gov/virtual_tour/i.../ff_spider.jpg
if so, this is a Golden silk Spider, or also known as a bananna spider, because of its color

[ 09-19-2003, 10:37 PM: Message edited by: Stormymystic ]

Worse spider you'll run into in Indiana is the Brown Recluse, man those things are dangerous [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img]

Worse spider you'll run into in Indiana is the Brown Recluse, man those things are dangerous [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]we have them, and also the widows, but that is really the only two dangerous spiders we have, but there are many different breeds of the widow :( so go figure

of course, there is always this lovely spider :D
http://tarantula-photo.com/images/new1.jpg
hint, pic is smaller than actual size [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 09-19-2003, 10:48 PM: Message edited by: Stormymystic ]

Yup very common. They practically own the little garden thing in my back yard. (No literally its about 3 feet wide, so its a back "yard"). Then in the front there's these other kinds of spiders that build webs that span to my next door neighbors wall (mind you there's about 9 ft of space between my building and theirs). The webs take on a triagular shape, at least the support structur does. and the spiders look like some kind of mini crab things. Seriously their shells are all crab shaped except for the spikes that protrude on either side (no not their legs). I hate spiders!!!

Brown Recluse and Black Widows are the only really dangerous ones I know about. I forget if the trapdoor spider is on the deadly scale. Any other nasty ones out there? Oh yeah, there was a black widow making it's home in my mail box I think last year. It's not there now, and I have no clue who cleared it out.

Stormy is that related to the Tarantula? </font>

[ 09-19-2003, 10:53 PM: Message edited by: Firestormalpha ]

Stormy...it was about 9 years ago now but if memory serves ya that was pretty much what it looked like. But they were BIG!!! If Im remembering correct they were about 4 inches long! My God they were gross! We have Widows up here to but they are just little guys and not very scary! In case you havent figured it out Im not a big spider fan!

lol, the only time a spider bothers me, is if I know it is deadly, I used to have pet spiders, although I wouldn't anymore, i love to watch them spin their webs, I also like what we call writing spiders, can not remember their proper names, but they make letters in their webs, and it is an old wives tell, that if you see your first Intial, then you will die in a week :D seen mine 5 times now, and am still alive [img]tongue.gif[/img]

edit, and if they were like 4 inches, they mght have been tree tarantulas, they can get pretty good size, to bad you did not take pics, lol

oh and edit again, let me get this straight, they let tourist on a boat, in the swamps, without a guide?????
<font size=3 color=00FA9A>Firestormalpha it is a tarantuala, lol, sorry, did not see your post before</font>

[ 09-20-2003, 12:34 AM: Message edited by: Stormymystic ]

It was actually a river type thing. it went into the bush for maybe ...1/4 to 1/2 K. before it started getting to overgrown to get a boat thru. But at our smoking speed it was about a 45 min. round trip. I say river type thing cause up here all our rivers run down mountains from snow melt and rain but Ive been to mexico where a ditch full of brown water is called a river! And thats sorta what it was like only wider!. Dont get me wrong it was still fun and something that left a memory!