Creatures Great and Small – Spiders

 

WARNING – If you have a phobia of spiders you may want to skip this post. :-)

Proverbs 30:28  The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.

I dislike spiders pretty much.  I can tolerate some of the garden variety outside where I know they will help reduce the flying bug population, but I don’t want them in my house and I loath them in my bedroom.  My husband and I have each had a significant spider bite at some point in our lives, though, thankfully, neither of them were brown recluse bites as far as we know.  Spider bites can be very nasty.  However, as a photographer and artist I have to admit that there are some that are really quite beautiful in a horrible sort of way. :-) 

I haven’t figured out how to look up spider varieties online and actually find what I’m looking for so these are not named here (as yet).  There must be a fantastic number of types out there.

This first spider is not exactly “beautiful”, but I thought its color was amazing.  I took this photo in Tennessee where we used to live.

 

This spider was in my garden in Tennessee.  I thought it was interesting.

I didn’t realize how interesting it would be with the flash, though!  Quite metallic, isn’t it?  It looks like a piece of jewelry.

I ran across this red velvet “beauty” here in Texas.  I assume it’s a tarantula of some sort, but I couldn’t identify it, as usual.

This spider on a fig tree here in Texas was photographed by my husband.  It is such a vivid green color, that despite its less appealing qualities, I’m going to include it. :-)  There are some interesting “braided” stripes on its back which are hard to see at this angle.

Here is a close-up of its very ugly face and many eyes – and its very prickly legs.

If you recognize any of these spiders please leave a comment telling me what they are.  Thanks. :-)