Another species Brachypelma albopilosum, Curly Haired tarantula, Costa Rica

Hum. Found myself babysitting half a dozen tarantula, of different species, over the weekend. Grandson doing zoology decided to collect this species.

I took some pic’s here are a couple:

First up, a close up of Aphonopelma seemanni, Striped Knee tarantula or Costa Rocan Zebra tarantula:

http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/MorePics7/Aphonopelma-shead.jpg

next up, Brachypelma smithi (Mexican Red Knee) a terrestrial tarantula native to Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Guerrero:

http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/MorePics7/Brachp'smit1.jpg

Greg, the spider you’re thinking of is probably the “huntsman,” not a harvestman. Those are the really big, fast ones that scare timid homeowners in all those videos. They can bite, but the venom isn’t medically significant.

And “harvester” or “harvestmen” also refers to a kind of spider, in other places.

What we in the UK call ‘daddy long legs’ .

Cockroaches used to be endemic in our older aircraft carriers. On Victorious I often used to bid one good morning as it swam out of my shredded wheat when I poured on the reconstituted powdered milk.

“…as the cockroaches fled the light…”

I have a statistician friend at Pfizer here in town who got his Ph.D at Iowa. He worked as a consultant for researchers in biology who were looking for effective ways to kill roaches. They had an abandoned gym building with the lower-level bleachers stripped out and windows boarded up that was a breeding lab for the little devils. He says that if you entered they’d scatter at the noise, but if you still long enough in the balcony above the gym floor, they would begin moving again and you could hear them crawling around. He says it was creepy.

Would that be creatures otherwise known as ‘Crane Flies’ dean?

Stationed on an Air Station in Southern England in early autumn hordes of these creatures would rise from the grass on the airfield in their millions and settle in huge festoons about 30 feet high, several feet wide and deep on the hangar doors facing the airfield. Working extra hours one night I was late getting to the mess in the dark and entered through an access lobby with internal door closed the external open. I crunched my way across a carpet of these things as many took to the air in a choking swarm. Most unpleasant.

On another occasion I was carrying out security rounds on the camp over night. Approaching midnight I had to ensure a junior rates laundromat was closed up. Typical ‘bricks and sticks’ (our idiom for the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works or MPBW) practice the light switch was on the far wall opposite the entrance. Entering in the dark I realised I was crunching my way ahead and as I turned on the light it was as if the floor got up and vanished into the walls, as the cockroaches fled the light.

But one year, when I was on RAGBRAI, I’d set up my tent in a field corner marked on one side by a woods and the other by a cornfield. I got up early in the morning to hit the potty and begin packing for the days’ ride. As I walked back to my tent it looked like the sides were moving in the wind. When I got closer I saw the sides were covered — almost completely — hordes of “daddy long legs” we call them. That was a little creepy. I’m rather glad I didn’t know that during the night.