Geek of the Month!

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Originally Posted by jasedee

Bah! I hardly see any spiders...

Of course you wouldnt unless you actually spent some time outside Jase

Some friends and I used to rent two mud brick houses on 10 acres, situated about 30km directly south of Mount Warning on the North coast of NSW....

- The very first night I stayed there I awoke to a 2.5 diamond python (non-poisonous) entering through a broken window pane near my feet. I was practically coccooned in my sleeping bag and had to roll off the other side of the bench I was sleeping on...

- We caught around 25 northern funnel webs while living there for 18 months. When we moved out, a friend was helping me to shift the double bed from the main house - we realised that the funnel webs had burrowed about 15 nests into the mud brick wall behind the bed....

- One morning a small brown snake (close to the most venomous snake in the world) dropped from the thatched bamboo insulation and onto my friends while they were sleeping - I heard the screams from about 75m away at the other house, and arrived to find my mate butt-naked fending off the snake like a matador with his doona!

- While weeding in one of our garden beds, I accidentally picked up a scorpion hidden amongst the weeds - needless to say my hand was quite sore for a couple of days.

- Word of advice - before tilling soil check for nests of all kinds. Especially ants. I managed to send a pitch fork into the side of a bullants nest and was subsequently covered by a few hundred bull ants. The bull ant dance beats anything ever screened by the office

- The coolest thing I saw out there was a trapdoor spider hole - which I have never seen anywhere else. The diameter of the door was about 7-8cm - so I didnt hang round long enough to see just how big the spider was. It was the perfect construction of the hole that impressed me... I wish i took a pic of it because I have searched the web thoroughly since looking for a similar burrow and cant find one that looks remotely like it.

Sorry to get OT in the OT section

Just makes me laugh when I hear people who have lived in the city all their life say "theres not that many spiders and snakes around". Especially sydney siders - go have a look around your house - esp around rock walls, darker garden areas, old sheds etc. I have lived in three seperate locations in Sydney, and I have found funnel webs at every location. Years ago when living in Terry Hills, my sisters through me in the pool and 3 small brown snakes appeared from the filter...

To top it all off, redback spiders are now breeding with whitetail spiders - creating a more mobile, aggressive, poisonous family of spiders. Only in Sydney, Jase

cheers

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