Chinese Spiders

[MPhillips]

Speaking of geckos the name for them in Taiwan is really neat 壁虎～must look it up to see if they are called the same on the Mainland. Hey Melanie! Once when I was in the hospital (here, not Taiwan) the girl next to me was in for a spider bite (don't come to the tropics--they are creepy-crawly city--not enough cute geckos to keep down the not-so-cute critters, not to mention the giant cockroaches which would almost certainly win against the average-sized gecko). It's not China so you certainly wouldn't want to come here anyhow--but sounds like we're about the same as Hainan Island (much hotter here than Guangzhou or Taipei, rather hotter than HK).

[Silent]

 

So while my partner is planning for the future, i'm thinking about where i can immigrate to.

You're lost, Spiders exist all over the globe with an exception for some polar regions. The best solution for large spiders is to fry and eat them. They make a beautiful dish and are a good source of proteine with a small ecological footprint when compared to more traditional sources of animal proteine.

[MPhillips]

Yes, Arachnids & Crustaceans are evolutionarily pretty close so they're said to taste a lot like crab!

[Melanie1989]

 

 

You're lost, Spiders exist all over the globe with an exception for some polar regions. The best solution for large spiders is to fry and eat them. They make a beautiful dish and are a good source of proteine with a small ecological footprint when compared to more traditional sources of animal proteine.

I was kidding about the immigration, it just crossed my mind as i've been planning a trip to China (though we really are infested with the bloody things). Also i'd rather eat my own eyeballs than eat a spider of any kind. I have seen people eat them -on tv- and they've said that they taste like Brazil nuts, but kinda furry. I find the whole thing rather amusing, just don't want to do it. Not even in China. 

 

Ooh, has anyone here ever eaten spider? I am curious to know exactly what they taste like, purely cos there seems to be so much debate. Hmmm.

[MPhillips]

I think you need to go to the Amazon jungle to find ones meaty enough to be worth the bother--who knows stow-aways might be coming my way pretty soon--I found a moth with a half-meter wing-span sitting on my front door once. I guess this recent British spider proliferation might be due to global warming? I read that palm trees grow on the Isle of Jersey now.

[Matty]

After 8 years in China, I've seen nothing worth mentioning in the north and 3 (pretty much) Aussie like Huntsmans in the South.

If you're coming over from the spider infested country of Australia, you'll be really happy. Unfortunately everytime a shadow moves in the corner, or you see a small mess of random wires poking at of a wall, you'll still think "spider!".

[MPhillips]

Melanie, you could try reading the US children's book "Charlotte's Web", reading it when I was a kid could be the reason I rather like spiders.

[Matty]

If huntsmans are called daddy-long-legs in the US what do you call an Australian daddy-long-legs?

My net is slow right now so I'm not going to keep waiting on images to load, but in Australia the huntsman is about the size of a womans hand with a thickish body and legs. It loves sitting and doors and alongside your bed or on the roof above it. It also loves to jump out of newspapers and try to (perhaps literally) scare the life out of you!

The daddy long legs is a scrawny little thing that loves to live in corners and no one even bothers to kill.

[MPhillips]

If you look up the chapter about the Class Arachnida on Wikipedia and then click on the Order Opiliones you will note that the Opiliones are also known as harvestmen, and in the UK & the US more colloquially as daddy-long-legs. Immediately after writing the quip in question I realized I'd mistaken "huntsmans" for "harvestmen" & went right back to delete my comment. I guess everything is bigger in Australia--our native North American marsupial the oppossum is only about as big as a scrawny cat! Sorry for the mistake--I deserve to be bitten by a huntsman--or whatever the spider was that bit the girl in the bed next to me at the hospital! We do have poisonous spiders in this here neck of the American woods--although luckily I haven't run into one yet. Can't wait to go back to my native latitude--where nature is my friend!

[imron]

Huntsmans are big and hairy but they aren't venomous, so a bite from one will sting, but otherwise do no harm.  It's the small coloured ones you've got to look out for.

[Melanie1989]

 

 

Melanie, you could try reading the US children's book "Charlotte's Web", reading it when I was a kid could be the reason I rather like spiders. 

Read it at school, but nothing will make me like them. I have sympathy for them and hate to kill them but sometimes i feel the need. They just seem to love torturing me. I've had one on my face, a long time ago. One jumped out at me in the shower a little while ago. Thankfully it was only tiny or i could've got really hurt. Freaking out and slippery surfaces don't mix.

 

I have lots of funny stories about spiders (things that have actually happened), and they make me laugh hysterically at times, but nothing will make that fear of them go away. Ugh, they're just so repulsive.

 

There are some fascinating spiders around. I've seen something recently about a peacock spider (i think), they're only small, but absolutely amazing looking. That's one to look up. Also sun spiders.....if i am thinking of the right one, they're horrible, but might be pretty cool to someone with an interest in them. There was also one in our back garden yesterday. Tiny, but genuinely it was silver and black. Bright sparkly silver! Actually quite pretty in a futuristic robot spider come to kill me from the future kinda way.

 

Anyway, that's a side to me i didn't know i had.

[Coys1991]

the only ones I have seen in Shanghai are these small white spiders. barely noticeable until you see them walking in darker surfaces.

[MPhillips]

Actually I greatly sympathize Melanie, been having a lot of unpleasant arthropod encounters lately myself.

[imron]

Actually quite pretty in a futuristic robot spider come to kill me from the future kinda way

I highly recommend the short story I, Robot by Cory Doctorow.

[XuanWu]

in Hubei i see every day but they are not poisonus and not very big.Even though i go to the mountain many times i havent met one yet(big tarantula size).

I had one in my room too, Betsy, that appeared only at night and wasnt that bad. I felt i had some company and helping me with the mosquitos. I accidently killed her one day   when i opened the door of the toilet. She was hiding in the slot of the door and fell dead on my arm.

 

You see there are other things that you might be afraid than spiders, like loneliness, as i see there other people who feel like this

[Shelley]

Excellent, some new but old sifi to read. thanks imron.

[Melanie1989]

 

 

I highly recommend the short story I, Robot by Cory Doctorow.

If it's anything like what i described, then i'll give it a miss hehe. At least until we have fumigated the house. Though i do have a real soft spot for sci-fi.

 

 

I had one in my room too, Betsy, that appeared only at night and wasnt that bad. I felt i had some company and helping me with the mosquitos. I accidently killed her one day    when i opened the door of the toilet. She was hiding in the slot of the door and fell dead on my arm.

 

You see there are other things that you might be afraid than spiders, like loneliness, as i see there other people who feel like this 

Actually, i have a similar story. When i was little there was one that lived behind our tv and we called him Fred cos i had a thing for Rik Mayall (cringe, but also devastated now he's passed). He spent a good few months with us, crawling all over the walls while we watched tv. He was the only spider i was never scared of, as long as he kept well away.

 

Then one day he ended up on my dad's shoulder so he of course got squished. I screamed "You killed Fred!" and didn't speak to him for days.

 

Still kinda pissed at him for that, hehe. 

[imron]

Then one day he ended up on my dad's shoulder so he of course got squished.

and Fred Dropped Dead....

 

If it's anything like what i described, then i'll give it a miss hehe

It's set in the future, and there is one part in it where robot spiders are chasing the good guys trying to kill them.  The robot spiders don't play a prominent role in the story or plot however and it's not anything scary.  Definitely worth a read.

[carlo]

Had a gecko hidden behind my wardrobe a couple of months ago in HK. I also saw some large spiders (orb-weavers?) while hiking on Lantau. But my favourites are the cockroaches that slowly swagger through the narrow streets of eg. Sheung Wan as if they owned the place. Pedestrians respectfully give way to them.

[Lu]

In Taiwan as well, in summer mouse-sized cockroaches cross the sidewalk. They don't amble slowly though, they usually walk quite fast and always make me jump. I'm not actually afraid of cockroaches, they just startle me. I've been told there are also flying cockroaches in Taiwan, but fortunately I've never encountered those.