Sunday, June 26, 2011

Speaking of huge

Wow – when I’m at a decent monitor instead of my laptop my pictures are huge – note to self.

Speaking of huge

Having lived in Illinois for 20 years I’ve come to terms with much of the insect life I had not encountered growing up in the UK. Bright green katydids and mantises the size of my thumb, cicadas that fill the night with deafening buzz, cicada hunter wasps that look like they could carry of small humans and sound like a helicopter.  

But. . . last week I found the biggest spider I have ever encountered without the benefit of interceding terrarium glazing. Its body was pretty much exactly the same size as FF49 but the six remaining legs were much much longer. And it was fast too – very fast – just like Molly thinks Shelob should have been in Return of the King.

So here is FF49 – first of the large critters to get completed


There are others getting close to done:


And here is the real FF49 in a standard pizza sauce jar  



(I released it - a long way from home)

Cheers

Caius

1 comment:

  1. Very nice critters as well - the painted ones at least. I am in Chicago in a basement apartment, so hopefully there will be no large living spiders in here.

    When I lived on Long Island (lots of damp, drizzle, and forests), the spider situation was so bad that we spotted 8 different kinds, and any spider smaller than a quarter coin we just ignored. But the spider with the body as big as a mouse's body had to go.

    But the large critters are probably my favorite pre-slotta minis, and I like the naturalistic paint scheme you've used for them.

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