THE BIG SPIDER

Last year a friend of ours sent us these pictures of a spider eating a bird (I went and found them on YouTube so you can see them): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTYBwAs0k6c&feature=fvsr

I think my brother sent me the same pictures and was wondering if they were really true. Now we knew moving here that Australia has a lot of spiders, many of which are poisonous, so I didn't doubt that it was true. So far the biggest spider I have seen in a huntsman. That is until I went to Queensland. We saw one of those spiders that people had sent pictures of, and golden orb spider.

We saw it at the Aboriginal gift and tour shop right before we got to Mossmon's Gorge. The lady running the shop asked us if we had seen it coming in and then proceeded to show it to us. The kids thought it was creepy, but cool, until they saw the dog that was roaming around the shop. Saurus soon became their best friend.

Kev spent a good amount of time getting pictures of the spider. Then I told him that you can't tell how big it really is unless someone is standing there. I guess that someone became me. I seriously couldn't get any closer physically - remember I had seen this spider eating a bird, I kept imagining it eating me. I thought I was much closer than that though. Kev loves this picture because of the look on my face.

It is a bit hard to see, but there is a little spider under the belly and by the bottom leg of the spider. That is the male. Can you believe how small it is in comparison to the female? I wonder if they eat them after they mate...poor fellow. On the way out I noticed another one in the trees right along the path way - although it was only about 3/4 the size.