Invasive species of giant, parachuting spiders spreading across East Coast, experts say

 

ATLANTA (TND) — An invasive species of spider has made its way to Georgia, and will likely spread out to more states along the East Coast, according to experts with the University of Georgia (UGA).

The 3-inch long "Joro Spider" is native to Korea, China, Taiwan, and Japan, according to Smithsonian Magazine. The spider thrives in Japan, which has a similar climate to the southeastern United States.

To read more on this story, click here: Invasive species of giant, parachuting spiders spreading across East Coast, experts say

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8 Scorpion Facts To Make Your Skin Crawl

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - Scorpions become more active in Arizona once the temperature rises above 70 degrees. So you'll see more scorpions from March through October in the Phoenix area.

Outside your home, or inside the house, these creepy-crawly creatures can be found anywhere.

Here are 8 terrifying and amazing facts about scorpions. Apologies in advance for any nightmares you might have. Ready?

To read more on this story, click here: 8 Scorpion Facts To Make Your Skin Crawl




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Man Finds Giant Bird-Eating Spider Guarding His Garage

Australia, The Land Down Under, is full of beautiful beaches, incredible landscapes…and scary things that can kill you.

Speaking of scary, meet Martha, the giant golden orb spider who made herself right at home in someone’s garage in Buderim, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Golden orb spiders typically eat flies, beetles, and moths – as well as small birds and bats.

To read more on this story, click here: Man Finds Giant Bird-Eating Spider Guarding His Garage


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Meet The Goliath Birdeater, The World’s Largest Tarantula That Eats Sparrows

The thought of being anywhere near a giant spider is terrifying to most of us. It’s easy to see why gigantic arachnids appear in books and films as villainous creatures — they just look like the stuff of nightmares.

Luckily, big bad spiders like Shelob in Lord of the Rings and Aragog in Harry Potter only exist in the fictional world.

However, there are scary spiders in this world that are very much real, like the Goliath Birdeater.

To read more on this story, click here: Meet The Goliath Birdeater, The World’s Largest Tarantula That Eats Sparrows



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Spiders Actually Have Tiny Paws, And It Might Change The Way You Look At Them (13 Photos)

Every animal in the world deserves respect and love, but if we’re plain honest, a lot of us humans are sort of scared of spiders, if not terrified. However, we recently learned that these animals might just be very misunderstood and also, they have tiny adorable paws!

They’re fairly unnoticed by most people since we hadn’t dare look that close. But when you zoom into pictures of spiders and their very complicated legs – which do more than just carry them around – you’ll notice their tiny little paws. Perhaps it’ll take us humans some time to still fully embrace the hidden adorableness of spiders, but here’s a look at their paws – hey, we gotta start somewhere!

To see the photos, click here: Spiders Actually Have Tiny Paws, And It Might Change The Way You Look At Them (13 Photos)


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Man Captures Footage of a Massive Spider Carrying an Adult Mouse

Coppabella, Australia - An Australian man summoned to his neighbor's kitchen to "see something cool" captured footage of a massive spider carrying its next meal, an adult mouse.

Jason Womas of Coppabella, Queensland, posted a video to Facebook of the gigantic huntsman spider carrying the apparently dead mouse up the side of his neighbor's refrigerator.

"So I am just about to leave for work... and me neighbor says 'You want to see something cool' and I say 'Hell yeah.' So we proceed to his place and he shows me this. Huntsman trying to eat a mouse," Womas wrote.

He said in a follow-up post that he and his neighbor decided to let the spider go about its business unharmed and they gave it a name, Hermie.

"OK guys so just letting you all know that the spider is fine. We have named him Hermie, we have adopted him and he is now running his own extermination business out of our town Coppabella. Oh and he is now paying rent," Womas posted.

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The Smithsonian's National Zoo is Showing Off the Rare Spider Tortoise that Hatched in the Reptile Discovery Center

Washington, DC - The Smithsonian's National Zoo is showing off the rare spider tortoise that hatched in the Reptile Discovery Center. The spider tortoise was born on May 10 and staff have been watching it closely since then.

The birth marks the first time a spider tortoise has hatched at the center. Zoo officials say spider tortoise eggs can be difficult to hatch in human care "in part because they must be incubated, cooled, and incubated again during the embryo's development."

The tortoise "appears to be thriving," according to zoo officials, and they hope to have it on exhibit this summer. Right now, zoo visitors can see a family group of adult male spider tortoises.

The sex of the two-week-old tortoise is unknown at this time.

Spider tortoises are listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, according to zoo officials. They are native to the forests and sandy coastlines of Madagascar. Their populations have "declined by 80 percent since 1970 and populations continue to dwindle due to habitat loss and wildlife trafficking for the food and pet trade," according to zoo officials.

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Wagga Wagga, New South Wales: Millions of Spiders Turn Green Fields White as Branches and Bushes Are Cocooned in Sticky Silk

At first glance it looks like the fields have been blanketed with snow - but this ghostly white landscape in Australia is the work of millions of spiders.

As flood waters raced past the town of Wagga Wagga, in New South Wales, the spiders were forced to clamber up trees and bushes, spinning their webs as they climbed.

The result was this amazing panorama - glistening sheets of web covering just about everything in sight.

Branches were cocooned in the sticky webs, while tall grasses appeared to be enrobed in silk.

The scenes are reminiscent of the coat of spiders' webs that were spun in Pakistan after last year's floods turning trees into what appeared like giant sticks of candy floss.

Residents of Wagga Wagga, returning to their evacuated homes as flood waters raced towards them after torrential rain turned rivers into raging torrents, were astonished to find the fields surrounding their houses transformed from green to white.

But while the town's residents are breathing a sigh of relief that they have escaped the threatening dangers of the floods, fears were growing today for the safety of two teenage men who have gone missing in a flood-affected part of Queensland.

Luke Andus and Solomon Love, 19, set out from the town of Normanton at the weekend to travel 180 miles to the west - but have not arrived.

"Police and family hold concerns for their welfare with some roads in the area impassable due to local flooding," said a police spokesman.

Dozens of freight trucks and hundreds of motorists remain stranded by the flood waters after the Bruce Highway was cut off in three places south of the town of Gympie.

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Peacock Spiders: Noted for Their Spectacular Courtship Display, Are Extremely Tiny – 4 to 6mm in Length

Members of the genus, commonly referred to as peacock spiders, belong to the jumping spider family Salticidae.

These spiders are extremely tiny – 4 to 6 mm in length, and are most noted for their spectacular courtship display.

The magnificent color on the males’ abdomens is from iridescent scales (which reflect light in both the visible and/or UV range), much like those found on moths and butterflies. By contrast, females are cryptically colored.

The genus contains around 30 recognized species, all of which – except Maratus furvus from China – are endemic to Australia.


The two new species, scientifically named Maratus jactatus and Maratus sceletus, were found in the Wondul Range National Park, southern Queensland, Australia.

Maratus jactatus, nicknamed Sparklemuffin, is a tiny spider: males are barely 4.5 mm long, though females are a bit bigger, up to 5.3 mm long.

The species name jactatus means ‘rocking (jolting)’ in Latin, a reference to the very rapid lateral rocking that punctuates the courtship display of males of this species.

“Male Maratus jactatus display by tilting the expanded fan to one side or the other, and then moving the extended ipsilateral leg III, mostly behind the fan,” the scientists wrote in a paper published in the journal Peckhamia.

“At cycles of 1-3Hz, the extended leg that is positioned behind the fan is first lowered over 0.2-0.4 s, then rapidly raised (or returned to its position behind the fan) to trigger a very rapid jolting or rocking movement of the whole body that lasts for only 20-30 msec. This rocking involves rapid ipsilateral (in the direction of the extended leg and tilted fan) rotation, followed by a return to the original position.”

Nicknamed Skeletorus, Maratus sceletus resembles other members of the genus in their general pattern, but has little colouration and is mostly black and white.

“The species group name (sceletus, noun, Latin) means skeleton, a reference to the bold, skeleton-like appearance of the male spider,” Dr Otto and Dr Hill wrote in the paper.

Males are 3.7 to 4.2 mm in body length, while females are 5.0 to 5.3 mm.

“Male Maratus sceletus generally approach the female from the opposite sideof a stem or blade of grass. If the female is on top, the male approaches from below, in a hanging position,” the scientists wrote.

“If the female is positioned belly-up beneath a stem, the male approaches from above. The fan dance of the male rapidly alternates from one side of a stem to the opposite side. Positions may be switched 10 times in a 20 s interval, with only 1 s or less of display in a single position.”

“The fan is prominently elevated and often waggled from side to side during this display, but the greatest and most rapid movement is that of the extended spinnerets, separately twitched from side to side. During display, the pedipalps are often moved up and down in front of the clypeus and chelicerae. One leg III is elevated but also flexed, displaying a prominent black stripe with little significant movement.”

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Unexpected Complexity in a Spider's Tiny Brain

Here is something to keep arachnophobes up at night.

The inside of a spider is under pressure, like the air in a balloon, because spiders move by pushing fluid through valves. They are hydraulic.

This works well for the spiders, but less so for those who want to study what goes on in the brain of a jumping spider, an aristocrat of arachnids that, according to Ronald R. Hoy, a professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University, is one of the smartest of all invertebrates.

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Are Those Spiders Falling From The Sky?

The weather forecast calls for it to be cloudy with a chance of spiders! Erick Reis was leaving an engagement party in Santo Antonio da Plantina in Brazil when he was stunned to see thousands of spiders raining down!

The spiders were crawling up and down silk threads attached to telephone pole wires and trees. The creepy footage was taken in February 2013 and gives the impression of spiders falling from the skies!

As scary as it seems, it turns out that this is a common occurrence with this kind of colonial spider, which is quite social and lives in large communities, catching prey in their huge, interwoven webs. High winds must have blown them out of the woods and into the town!

Share this unusual sight with your friends!

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Is This the Most Hideous Spider Video Ever? Wolf Spider Hauls Mass of Babies on its Back Into a House (Video)

From their fearsome fangs to rippling legs, spiders strike fear into many people – especially when they invade the home or workplace.

Two men in Missouri have had an especially unwelcome visit from a large wolf spider, whose abdomen was covered in a writhing mass of tiny spiderlings.

While the mother arachnid may have been looking for a safe place to raise her wriggling brood, her presence was met with horror by panicked onlookers.

To read more on this story and see video, click here: Is This the Most Hideous Spider Video Ever?


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Deadly Spider Found in Family's Bananas

The last thing you'd expect to find lurking in your bananas is a creature whose Greek scientific name means "murderess."

But that's exactly what one London family found after a grocery delivery from the Waitrose supermarket chain, the Daily Mail reports. The family patriarch (known only as "Tim") was unloading the groceries when he spied the venomous Brazilian wandering spider—the world's most dangerous arachnid, LiveScience reports—and panicked, dropping the bananas into a bowl and trapping the spider by one of its legs.


To read more on this story, click here: Deadly Spider Found in Family's Bananas

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Goliath Encounter: Puppy-Sized Spider Surprises Scientist in Rainforest

Piotr Naskrecki was taking a nighttime walk in a rainforest in Guyana, when he heard rustling as if something were creeping underfoot. When he turned on his flashlight, he expected to see a small mammal, such as a possum or a rat.

"When I turned on the light, I couldn't quite understand what I was seeing," said Naskrecki, an entomologist and photographer at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

To read more on this story, click here: Goliath Encounter: Puppy-Sized Spider Surprises Scientist in Rainforest

(To subscribe to The Pet Tree House, click on this icon
in the black drop-down menu on your right. Thank you.)

on Twitter @thepettreehouse

Visit my blog! The News Whisperer, An informative blog of what's going on in your world today!
 at: www.whispersoftheworld.com

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