According to "Iziko Museums of Cape Town", guinea-pigs bitten by the spider died within three minutes, but this was found to have been from shock and not the effects of any venom.
It's that time of year, the gentle sounds of summer approaching, lawnmowers, crickets, birdsong, the fizz of beer cans opening, and the shrieks of suburbanites confronted by rain spiders.
"They are among the biggest non-tarantula spiders in the world," said amateur arachnologist Astri Leroy, of the fat-bodied long-legged Sparassidae often found indoors in the last parched weeks before the summer rains come.
Nestled behind alarm sensors, they set off burglar alarms when stepping out for a nibble on a passing insect, and plunge households into turmoil through arguments over who is going to remove them, reducing strapping alpha males into Tupperware-clutching wrecks.
"None of the ones I know do any harm at all, but they are pretty big," said Leroy, a founder member of the Spider Club of Southern Africa.
They can have a legspan of up to 7cm and a head to abdomen measurement of about 3cm |
clipped from www.iol.co.za
No comments:
Post a Comment