Hairy arms of death

My friends in the native plant movement like to tell you that when you plant natives in your backyard, you'll attract a wide array of indigenous fauna who appreciate the opportunity to live, dine and mate among their preferred host plants.

What they don't tell you is some of that native fauna can scare the living crap out of you!

On Halloween morning, I was picking the last of the tomatoes when I looked up and saw, suspended in a web just above my head in the Prunus ilicifolia (holly leaf cherry), a sumo-wrestler-sized spider who no doubt planned to feast on my bodily fluids as I struggled helplessly against the grasp of its mighty hairy tentacles.

Bravely resolving that my last moments on this earth should advance the field of vertebrate biology, I took the digital camera out of my pocket and hurriedly snapped some pictures of this Arachnid of Doom, while in my breathless panic I somehow managed to recite the 23rd Psalm.

It wasn't until today that I was able to gaze upon these photos, stark testimony to man's impotence against the forces of a brutal, unforgiving wilderness.

Kurt "big daddy" True
20 november 2004