h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A bit off topic, but what has happened to the Stag Beetles. When I was a child, classmates were always bringing them to school in matchboxes. Haven't seen one for 20 odd years.

This spider thread is lovely to read.

Mandrake: *yes, I've sent a response* :¬)

x x Fenny (initialising on-topic recovery)

The first time I saw a jumping spider, I thought it was one of nature's disguises: a flea that looked like a spider or something! The other day, I had the opportunity to watch one gather its legs under it, and spring onto the small fruit fly I'd pushed in its direction.

"Moves like a dream; drives like a fish; steers like a cow!" ...Unfortunately it missed, and retired to the window-post with embarrassment, but I saw it try again later.

x x Fenny (bed? what's that?)

I have a major confessions to make - On Sunday night I came across not one but two very fat, large black spiders (one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom) and as I no longer have a man around to 'remove' them, they were brutally murdered.

It's awful, I know, but the place just wasn't big enough for the three of us - so they had to go!!

P.S. I love stag beetles - you only really find them amongst rotting tree stumps in woods now, but when I was a child they were always in the garden.

You can be given special dispensation for having the spiders killed, since it was an emergency. (Honestly! spiders coming over here, taking all our jobs...)
Bed is an observation platform for watching things crawl across the ceiling, and catching them. I keep coming acoss similar spiders: I'll see a tiny baby silver furry one, then days later a big silver furry one will turn up. And there'll be an ickle leggy brown one in my room, only to return later as a large leggy brown one.
I should start a photo album- 'Spiders I have known'.

Stag beetles really are fabulous, exotic looking animals, aren't they? They did an item about them on Country File, on BBC1 last Sunday. Their numbers are plummeting because of the obsessional tidiness of people. They need dead logs to lay their eggs and the larvae live in the logs for (I think they said) years before developing into those amazing beetles. Trouble is, people don't leave logs to lie and rot. They feel they have to tidy them up or take them home for fire wood, so the poor old beetles have nowhere to live and breed. It's very sad.

I'm one of those people that doesn't have a problem with spiders, but won't handle them above a certain size - about 1cm across, including legs. I don't care much for the larger ones, but I tend to leave them alone unless they are in the bath when I want to use it, or near the bed when I want to go to sleep. On such occasions the spider is disposed of - alive if possible, but I will kill them if I have to. Actually, I find some kinds of spider very attractive, and most are fascinating in their way.

*However*, I am married to an arachnophobe who won't even look at pictures of spiders unless they are obviously fake. He's also the son of two arachnophobes, and some time this week I've got to visit his parents who have just bought a spider catching device. Unfortunately the manufacturers put a fake spider in the thing, so my in-laws don't even want to take it out of the box. Don't the manufacturers of these things realise that a lot of the people who buy them do so because they are afraid of the things they are trying to catch! How stupid can people get?!?

You guys are very nice. I don't have a problem with any bugs or spiders, I just don't want them living in my house where I can see them. If I do happen to run across them they get squished or flushed. I don't really understand why people catch them and put them outside, where do you think they came from in the first place?

I put them outside because I think they have a better chance of survival than in my room, where flies rarely venture.
The spider-catching thing sounds really daft.
As for stag-beetles, it's not just them that suffer because of 'tidiness'- I find that I often use things for more than one day in a row, so I have to leave them out. I also do more than one thing a day. So naturally I have to have all my stuff out, or I'd spend all day getting it set up and tidied away- I love clutter! Perhaps we should start a campaign to win back the world from obsessive neatness. (Not that no one's allowed to be neat, it just shouldn't be forced on those who aren't.) And if we're chided for being untidy, say "I'm saving the stag beetles- what are YOU doing for them?"

I was standing at the sink earlier this evening, about 18 inches from the open back door. My legs had been itchy several times during the washing marathon, but I'd just moved one leg to rub the other in a lazy stork-like fashion. This time, something prompted me to look down, and I saw a red dot on my leg: it looked as if something had bitten me. I looked more closely, and realised the dot was moving; looked more closely still, and realised a money-spider (the tiny red mites) had chosen my leg as a playground!

Does anyone remember what money-spiders have to do in order to bless you financially? How much can I expect from having it run up my leg?

x x Fenny (posting from a messy room in a messy house - I'm house-proud, it's just I have different standards from other people!)

Thanks for the Stag postings. It's so hot and muggy tonight. The spid that lives behind my puter desk is standing on top of my printer, holding one leg in the air. I think it wants a drink. Oh, it's gone.

Is that the one that inspired you so much on Useless Information?
Spiders have many uses!

This spider has a web between the desk and the the wall. The other nights spider was a visitor, that had to be evicted, before one the cats felt moved to play with it. They never eat them. Just paw them still they stop moving. Cats eh?

There's a similarity between cats and spiders in that they favour slow, lingering and entertaining (for them) deaths for their victims.

I'm sorry Mandragora Scrymidden but I have to object to that analysis. Spiders may kill their prey horribly, but I'm sure it doesn't entertain them. They don't play with their food like cats do. They're very business-like hunters and don't waste time or energy on torment. Cats and spiders are both efficient hunters and killers, it's true but cats are playful monsters whereas spiders are serious monsters ...... love their little hearts

Shorn, you're right. Spiders are serious. Very serious. But not totally without a good eye for an entertaining moment: just consider Mrs B. Widow for a moment. She gets down carefully, to the idea of procreation, but then makes sure her husband makes dinner for her as well!

x x Fenny (sorry to 'phobes! It had to be said!)

That Mrs Widow ah? What a gal!

There's an Oscar Wilde quote for her: "I hear her hair has turned quite gold, from grief!"

Cheers and support for partying widows everywhere!

I'm watching a spider playing yo-yo. It's risen and fallen on its silk five times, without giving up. Anyone any idea of its motivation?

x x Fenny (bemused)

Much as I dislike spiders, I cannot help but warm towards Mrs. Black Widow - she's really got things sussed - eating my husband would certainly have solved a load of problems, and saved on the grocery bills!!

About spiders and cats- I was joking. There's been some discussion as to how spiders and cats are similar, at least previous to this page.
The male tarantula has to stroke his mate into a trance before they get their groove on so she doesn't realise what he's doing and eat him. Then he runs like the dickens.
Fenny- maybe your yoyo spider is telling you to persevere in your fight against the English?

Good point. Spiders and cats are inextricably linked.

They're both clinically evil.