Godzilla Spiders

i suppose because we've had the 2nd wettest year on record this winter that the insect population is way out of wack. i walk my dogs every night and in my 10 years here have never ever seen so many huge spiders with their webs going right across the sidewalk. i always carry my madmax to light up the low hanging trees so i don't run into one of these buggers. i swear i saw one tonight that was 2inches long, huge, on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. freaks me out. i've actually considered wearing my headlamp, even though i'd look like a dork. anyone else noticed this in so. cal? i'm not usually freaked out by average sized spiders (except brown recluse) but these puppies are gigantic. anyone else have a phobia of godzilla spiders?

Oh Yeah,.... my spider can beat up your honor roll spider!/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crackup.gif

My night shift garden spider has disappeared tonight. It's been around for at least the last three weeks. I miss'em on my nightly rounds of my back yard.

BUT the amount of bugs in the light beam is huge. OH, yea the spider's leg spread was about the size of a quarter.

=D~~ Kilted

There are spider webs all over the yard and even outside on our porch. The spiders always come out at night.

Each morning there is a new web in the same spot that I walk right through and break. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif

You think it would give it a clue to stop puttng a web there.

I've never heard of Godzilla spiders, is that their real name, or just your own nickname for them? Are they dangerous or are you just arachnaphobic?

[ QUOTE ]
tygger said:
...in my 10 years here have never ever seen so many huge spiders... i swear i saw one tonight that was 2inches long,...these puppies are gigantic.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah,I don't like the really big ones, but you have to understand I grew up in southern Florida, where the spiders I used to hunt in our house with my BB gun started at about twice that size. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
There was also a really beautiful one, the Golden Orb Spider, an import from Costa Rica, I think. It measures about the same as my hand span--9 inches.

I don't mind the spiders so much, but the breeding populations of Burmese and other pythons and constrictors there indicate that the really nasty african and Indian snakes that have escaped over the years are probably doing very well, too.

You don't hear much about them: bad for the tourist trade, you know.

Arachnifobia! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crackup.gif I spent last week in Europe- 2-days in Dublin, followed by 2-days in Nivelles, Belgium. My second day in Nivelles, my local cohort and I passed three, obviously-distressed women in the hallway outside a restroom alcove. (to the left, the Men's door, to the right, Women's) The alcove's light, if it had one, was out, but there was a critter on the floor. "Flashaholic moment" time! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I lit it up and it was a large spider- legspan about 2" long and 1" wide. One woman "freaked" and ran to the end of the hall. The spider walked up to ~4" from my shoe and then beat it back into the alcove. My cohort opened the men's room door where it beat a retreat. I have no idea what happened to it afterwords. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crackup.gif

Larry

Spiders give me the creeps! Except the really, really tiny white ones. I don't know what they're called but they look like albinos.