Not all blogs are supposed to be serious, and here in the DR there are strange and unusual bugs. One of them is stalking me. Let me explain. When I first moved in to the Makarios house a month ago, I noticed one of my favorite things, a large, thick, furry spider in Kate's and my room (see pic), welcoming me to the DR. These spiders are (supposedly) harmless and eat other bugs and mosquitoes, and we are therefore supposed to let them live. For anyone who knows me fairly well and has seen me jump and possibly even let out a little scream at the sight of a spider knows that this is not an easy thing for me to live with.To continue with the story...While cleaning out my closet this afternoon, I noticed a dead banana spider. As I was attempting to maneuver the items in my closet to remove the dead spider with as little contact as possible, a LIVE banana spider ran out from it's hiding place. After I jumped, shreaked a little, and then felt silly since "it's more scared of me than I am of it", I decided to let it live in my closet if it wishes and I removed the carcass of the dead spider. Well...later this evening as I am getting ready for bed, I notice the LIVE banana spider on my shoe under my bed (see picture below)! Why is it getting closer? To avenge it's fallen comrade?? Why is there a monster under my bed???
I asked Kate if we could leave the light on and she said no. So I decided if I give him a name he may not be so bad, thus Spider Bob Banana Pants. Wish me luck. :)Update 2.26.08: After a wise word from my cousin, I have researched the ACTUAL type of spider that liveth in my closet. While the common name here in the DR may be 'Banana Spider', or as one of our students said...it's name is 'Araña' (Spanish/Dominican joke), I believe the actual name of it to be the Huntsman spider, family Heteropodidae/Sparassidae, possibly genus Isopeda. Eats bugs, not aggressive or deadly. Bien.
2 comments:
You are so brave :)
Hmm, I had always heard that banana spiders were very dangerous. A trip to google shows that it is the South American banana spider that is the nasty one. The North American spider is rather harmless. Though from the images, I'm not sure those are really Banana Spiders (Golden Silk Orb-Weever spider). They look far more nasty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Banana_spider.jpg). The South American spider (also called the Brazilian wandering spider) looks more like a Tarantula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wandering_spider.jpg). From the pics you posted, they look more like wolf spiders.
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