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Aww, that's lovely <3
I use to be afraid of spiders - this not helped by an incident when I was 6.
I was walking home, through the marram grass on the sand dunes of Lossiemouth beach. The wind was very strong, when, suddenly I felt a thump on my chest and a huge spider exploded!! Hundreds of baby spiders erupted from the central thump.
Looking back, it was probably a wolf spider that landed on me. blown by the wind, and the spiderlets it was carrying just dispersed. It was freakingly scary.
I never told anyone, as when I was about 3, and living in Malta, I saw a snake in the dry stone wall near our house. I told my dad, who came out and said 'It's just a rock snake, it's harmless'. I remember thinking, even at such a young age 'How was I to know? - I was always told to avoid snakes', so thought I would be right royally ridiculed, even at the age of 6, for mentioning this not too nice experience with a mere spider.
Anyway, I avoided spiders,(but never killed them) until my eldest was born.
By then, I had realised the spider hadn't wanted to be blown onto me etc etc, saw what beautiful creatures they are, and it would be better my children realised this, than had a 'phobia' forced onto them.
As for snakes - I once spent a good 5 minutes trying to 'encourage' a basking adder away from the side of a path, by jumping up and down and getting nearer and nearer (I was wearing sturdy leather boots, a 'strike' would have had little effect) in case a 'phobic' came along and battered it 'In case it struck'! - which obviously it had little intent on doing.
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Maggie, I'm fine with spiders, even the venomous ones, but detest snakes.
I would never kill a snake as if I see one I'm off in the opposite direction at a fair rate of knots :-D :-D
A few years ago we had a few visits by huntsman spiders both inside and outside the house. The problem with the exterior ones is that you very often walk into their webs at night
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A few years ago, I was sat in the shade of a bush in my mum's garden in Portugal.
I went in to get something, went to sit down again and noticed a HUUUUGGGE snake behind the chair.
I went back into the house, looked it up, it was a very large Montpellier snake
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malpolon_monspessulanus
I sat back down and continued reading my book.
Similar incident - also in Portugal. I was cleaning out the garage, when I came upon a scorpion. Went into the house to ask mum the protocol on scorpions.
'Kill it' screamed mum.
So, I carefully killed it - slow lowering of foot - and have it in a plastic container as I type :-D
I intend (someday) to turn it into a paperweight.
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Thanks for that Allan wildly impressed both with the spiders and their hosts.
Scorpions are a member of the very successful arachnid phyla which have been around for hundreds of millions of years. They will likely be around when homo sapiens(?) is long gone.
Despite the general fear scorpions are not dangerous and should not be killed on sight. They are a key member of the ecological chain with the v useful tendency to eat all kinds of very annoying insects, ants and especially cockroaches.
In the middle east they have a tendency to hide in shoes (*), clothes not hung up and so on. A scorpion asleep in a shoe will not welcome an incoming foot! However if the shoe is shaken upside down the creature will fall out and scuttle away no harm to foot or scorpion. Similarly give clothes a shake before putting them on.
Of the hundreds of species of scorpion only a few dozen are venomous (mostly in Asia and Africa) . While the bite can be painful none are fatal to an adult human being though medical attention is advised. The bite can be fatal for children the old and those with weak hearts.
In lands not for the faint hearted such as Iraq and Turkey the half domesticated cats will hunt scorpions for food and fun.
Fried scorpion is a tasty Chinese dish I have eaten in Singapore. Not all that much different to prawns.
(*) middle east etiquette does not allow the wearing of shoes inside somebody's home. Westerners quite often give a great deal of offense by ignoring this rule both as guests and as hosts.
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These are pretty awful b*ggers.
When we went over one February, for a memorial service to my mum, after she died, I spotted a few nests in the trees. The photo's I took show the caterpillars emerging from the nest.
http://sosalgarveanimals.com/warning-processionary-caterpillars
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