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If there’s an image that summarises my idea of complete horror, this is it: a wolf spider carrying dozens of babies on her back. It’s the only spider in the world that does this.
It’s also the only spider that carriers her eggs in a round silken globe attached to her abdomen. After a gestation of 9 to 27 days—it varies depending on the temperature—the egg hatch and the infant spiders move onto the mother’s back until they are old enough to hunt on their own.
These spiders are everywhere in the world, billions of individuals living in gardens everywhere. They are voracious predators, roaming the soil under the ground looking for other insects to eat. Sometimes, they wander into houses.
When I was living in Miami I had an encounter with one of these wolf spiders, one that was burned into my retina. I remember the hairy bastard walking down the rug of my bedroom; my girlfriend screaming; me using a shoe to kill it and then I remember seeing two hundred thousand little spiders running everywhere. Then I screamed more than my girlfriend, because I remembered I hate spiders too. [Spirderzrule—Thanks Karl!]
Another view of the abdomen plagued with spiderlings.
A wolf spider carrying her eggs in a silken globe on her abdomen. The only spider in the world to exhibit this eerily human-ish behaviour.
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right where do these live? cos I’m never going there!
When I first glanced at the image I thought it was some weird wooly creature. Sort of like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
This is sending shivers down my spine… :s
BURN WITH FIRE!
First image gives me proper creeps, man…thanks
These things do NOT live in the UK – another reason to be happy with our slighly damp country!!
I was told that these things have a toxic enough bite to kill a small dog – is this true?
no its not true. they can bite and the result is usual mild pain, swelling and itching but not anywhere close to death. even for a dog.
for me the most scary thing is that the eyes light up on these bad boys if you shine a torch on them. We saw a few while in OZ and shiny eyes on a spider is not good.
Well thats is ok then – lived in Dubai for a while and a photo similar to this went around the emails but along with a little story about a little yorkshire terrier getting bitten and very poorly but it was one of those friend of a friend type emails!
As for eyes lighting up all sorts of animals do that and it makes all of them look like demon things, but on a massive spide I can imagine it being bloomin scary!
Dom
Wish that was true! They are widely distributed throughout the world, and are quite common here in the UK (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/355.shtml)
Wikipedia (as always) has more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider
However, in the UK they are not protected by law, so make sure shoes are at the ready…
Ah man – I didn’t need to know that!!
Never seen one here in the UK.
I saw the picture, crapped my pants, and now i’m too scared to read the article in fear it will send me into a lunch time panic attack. Thanks Gizmodo.
Calm down guys. These spiders are very common and are really pretty small – according to Wikipedia max size 1.3 inches, and often much smaller. The picture makes it look scary huge, but it’s just a zoom lens.
It looks like one of the end bosses in zelda, i can imagine it dropping the baby’s off one by one to be attacked first before being allowed to pick off its eyes one by one….. I HATE SPIDERS!!
I dont’ mind spiders all that much but this thing freaks me out…
Reminds me of the spiders from Lost in Space – the excellent 1998 film rather then the average 1960s series – except they eat their wounded, even if they are the parents.
It does look rather unpleasant and I don’t actually mind spiders, but at least it reminded me to dig out that film again for everyone’s enjoyment this Christmas.
I think these things are really cute! All the little babies snuggled up. There’s a nice video of them here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmr-B_JZTnE