Don White wrote in news:ChqJg.6393$9u.76004@ursa-
nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca:

Absolutely gross! Not for the squeamish... or girlie men like Bert &
Frizzle.



I'm told amputation is the only way to stop it.....

A 20-something girl at our local Hess gas station, one of the attendants,
had her hand all wrapped up and I asked her what happened....brown recluse
had bit her in her garage while she was searching for something. The
bandage was because the doctor had cut out a fairly good size portion of
her thumb in an attempt to save her hand. She didn't know if it were going
to work as it was still eating away at it.

This is not a joke. This innocent-looking little spider, from a little
smaller than to a little bigger than a Canadian twoney can cause this slow
eating away of your flesh. They're not agressive, like Black Widows
protecting the nest. But, if you've pinched them, not watching where you
put your hand in their dark resting places they use in the daytime, you can
end up in serious trouble. They just are there, not chasing your hand or
anything. Very hard to ID without a close look. We have lots of little
brown spiders in SC.

We also have this HUGE garden spider that makes a massive web from several
points. One made a nest across the sidewalk at a friend's house in
historic downtown Charleston. The spider was, legtip to legtip in the
middle of her webtrap, 8" across! Her main body segment, whatever the back
part is called, was nearly as big as a "C" cell battery and beautifully
colored in yellow. They always weave this very intricate criss-cross
design of thousands of strands from the middle to the lower edge of the
web, very hard not to notice. Then, when you look close, there's another
TINY little spider also sharing this web. That's her MATE! As soon as he
mates with her, she eats him, wrapping him up with the rest of the prey,
his function now complete. I don't remember ever seeing one of them with
any kind of eggsac. I think that must be planted somewhere safe. We
watched her for about 2 weeks, came out one day and the whole web was just
gone, something I'd seen them do before. Not a remnant strand was left.

Well, as you lay there in your bunks tonight....don't worry....(c;

--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.