Arachnophobia cure - two pretty spiders discovered in Qld

[madbadgalaxyman]

Spiders do tend to get a bad press, and they do seem to give a lot of people a bad case of the horrors.

However, here are two very beautiful species of Peacock Spiders recently discovered in Queensland:

(1) Maratus jactatus (male)
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(2) Maratus sceletus (male)
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I, personally, think that spiders are rather nice.....indeed, I once shared a night in a motel room in Katherine with a spider that was the size of a large dinner plate!

cheers,
madbadgalaxyman

[pgc hunter]

They are lovely indeed. I don't mind spiders either, most of them stay put in their webs or whatnot if they are not disturbed. They can be quite useful to trap those ugly mosquitoes.

Although if I had one the size of a dinner plate in my bedroom I think I'd sleep on the couch, I don't want that thing on my face at night!

[madbadgalaxyman]

She, whom I christened Shelob, eventually crawled off and hid in a corner, and after that happened I was unable to find her or see her for the rest of the night;
for both of us, after this, it became a case of "live and let live". In any case, it was 42 degrees C and very very humid outside, so I wasn't going to leave my airconditioned motel room bacause of any creature, no matter how monstrous it was in size and appearance.
-Robert

[pmrid]

Those peacock spiders are certainly colorful. It does remind me of an axiom about colorful things in nature - the brighter they are the more likely to be toxic/venomous etc. It may only be true of berries and so forth but when I see the lycra-coated backside of the spider in that first image, my immediate instinct is to emigrate.

Peter

[eddiedunlop]

Thanks for the images Rob. My daughter mentioned the discovery to me the other night, and being busy at the time, I didn't pay much attention. I have long been a fan of peacock spiders. They are extraordinary creatures but because they are small they fail to capture people's imagination.
Fortunately I don't suffer from arachnophobia. A few months back I was in the car with a hard as nails German rower. She absolutely flipped out when a huntsman ran along the dashboard!

[Baddad]

In my younger sillier days I used to tease Huntsmans.:eyepop:
I copped fangs into my fingers a few times. Never had any reaction to the bites.
The fangs are long enough to penetrate the skin and leave punctures.
However I am still alive.

What it proves is that most spiders, or all the spiders I have dealt with will not attack or bite unless cornered or teased. They are timid and shy. They sometimes make mistakes in choosing which way to escape. Culminating in running under the bed or into cupboards.

I like to have them around as a natural and safe insecticide.

Another use; For bachelors who want to get rid of last night's date; "My pet spider's gotten loose" Heh heh (evil laugh):lol:

Peacock Spiders, Money Spiders and other colourful spiders are always interesting to see.:) Thanks Robert

[marc4darkskies]

No matter how pretty they'd end up looking like road kill in our house (or any other place we're staying). My house is officially designated an insect free zone! :lol:

If they're outside and not casting a huge web across a walkway then spiders (usually large golden orbs) will be left alone and even occasionally admired.

[Exfso]

I am with Marcus on this one, no such thing as a pretty spider, road kill is the way to go. Hideous things, makes my skin crawl at he sight of them.:rolleyes:

[madbadgalaxyman]

_______________

Exfso (peter) might hate spiders, but to many birds and reptiles and small mammals, a spider is essentially a tasty morsel of food!!

Good to hear that there are so many other people out there who like spiders, or at least tolerate them.

Marty, it may have been one of those youthful things to tease a Huntsman Spider and to risk a bite, but in doing so you learnt a lot more about the science of animal behaviour & cognition than someone who instinctively (without thought) kills them without even thinking about their capabilities and their intelligence and their role in the food chain.

For instance, it might be possible to ascertain, from playing with a Huntsman Spider, whether it essentially always thinks according to a reflexive stimulus-response loop, or whether it makes decisions at some level according to its "moods" or internal psychological states.
For instance, In A.I. lab at uni, we studied the behavioural responses of spiders to environmental stimuli, in order to program robots that can survive in an unpredictable environment.
_______________

Incidentally, I named my dinner-plate-sized spider after Shelob the Great, the spider monster in the Lord of The Rings:
"......monstrous and abominable eyes they were, bestial and yet filled with purpose and with hideous delight, gloating over their prey trapped beyond all hope of escape......
There agelong she had dwelt, an evil thing in spider-form....
She served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts....
Little she knew of or cared for towers, or rings, or anything devised by mind or hand, who only desired death for others, mind and body, and for herself a glut of life....."
____________________

[louie_the_fly]

As a person who suffers from anxiety triggered by various environmental things, including the bigger of the
Arachnoid species in my area, I can honestly say that even if you put makeup and a pretty dress on them they'd probably still freak me out.

[Matt Wastell]

No, that has not helped at all!

[madbadgalaxyman]

The recently published book "A Guide to the Spiders of Australia" by Framenau and Baehr and Zborowski (2014, Reed New Holland)(ISBN: 9781 92151 724 2) is a useful guide to the 79 families of spiders found in Australia, going miles beyond the typical simplified spider identification book.

This work has the following things to say about Peacock Spiders. Here I have summarized their discussion : :

Peacock Spiders are part of the family Salticidae, that is, the Jumping Spiders.

This family of spiders use visual cues for foraging and mating, facilitated by the excellent vision of their large anterior median eyes. The spiders in this family can perceive depth, an ability that they need in order to judge how far they have to jump to attack their prey; these spiders mostly ambush their prey during the day. Normally, a spider in the family Salticidae has 8 eyes in all.

Jumping spiders are notably sexually dimorphic, with the males often being much more colourful than the females. Within Salticidae, the genus Maratus contains 36 described species of Peacock Spiders.

Male peacock spiders are usually extremely colourful, coming in a wide variety of colours. The males have abdominal flaps which they spread when courting female peacock spiders..... in order to make their abdomen seem bigger, thus amplifying the signal provided by the very colourful abdomen of the male. In other words, the males look pretty in order to attract the females (!) ......
it is very possible that the female compares the colouration of the various available males when she makes a choice of mate, surveying and comparing the various potential mates. (This is a pattern we also see in birds)

[Baddad]

Interesting jottings Robert.:)

As a child I also used catch flies with my hands and throw them into spider webs. The resident spider would suddenly emerge and pounce on the captured fly. What happened next was fascinating.
The sticky spider threads that are so entangling to prey insects is expertly woven around the fly. With surgeon precision, the fly is enveloped in a cocoon of web material.

Sometimes I was able to move an intruding spider to a web. The resident spider would chase the trespasser out. Although when a fight emerged that was something else to see.
This process of capturing flies and feeding them to the marauding spiders went on frequently for a few years in my childhood. Eventually I grew bored of it.

I threw flies into aquariums to see the fish reactions. Wow! they were quick.

I grew up with little fear if any of spiders. Fascinating creatures. I found people who had little exposure to the eight legged fellas tended to be scared of them. Some people are scared of dogs. Yesterday my Border Collie encountered two such people. Rambo is a very humanly social dog. He likes to "say hello" to strangers. Yet these two persons were visibly scared of Rambo's friendly advances.

Same applies to people and spiders. A fear of insects I believe is an unnecessary stress to have to live with. Its easy to overcome. Saves a lot of screaming. I taught my kids to have no fear for insects. They used to scream if a cockroach ran through. I offered monetary rewards to "thong the roach" and eventually no cockroach was safe in the house.LOL:lol:

Do think when you do go to kill that next spider. You are allowing diease ridden mossies to live. Spiders may only scare you but mossies, they can make you very sick.

[Regulus]

They have 'bad press' with me regardless of their beauty at the mo'. Have had a numb little finger for 3 months thanks to one of them. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
Still I do like finding a pretty one, and these two are quite beautiful. Just very strange looking things though, spiders.

Trev