Spiders.

[RiflemanSmith]

Apparently (no source I can recall) the reason spiders get stuck in the bath is they're quite literally parched, living in what amounts to an artificially water-poor environment. So they have to take a chance to try and secure some water and wind up in this F_ing huge white thing that had a bit of water in it but is impossible to get back out of.

(Look away now, arachnophobes)
Also apparently (again no source), this same lack of water sources means the average person will eat a half-dozen spiders in their lifetime. While you're sleeping with your mouth open, if you really must know..and all it wanted was a drink!

That's an urban myth.

 

[Cubist]

I love them. I once had a bout of 'flu and whilst bedridden in the Sick Bay I found a book on arachnids and their lifestyle. The book had a profound effect, and I find them the most fascinating creatures. If you are ever bored, have a quick google around crab spiders, the sort of ones that mimic orchids to trap insects

Spend half an hour reading about the love life of male house spiders.... you'll want to learn drumming just to survive your next romantic encounter.

As for Riflemansmith's tarantulas, I think some of the most beautiful things you can handle. We had a Mexican Red Knee, docile and placid to the point of affectionate, as a school lab pet.

I knew a guy in Germany who had a Chinese Bird Eater, which could be a bad tempered bastard!

One of the most beautiful, and a firm favourite of mine, is the Orb Web spider. Known in German as the "Kreuzspinner" because of the cross on it's back, this beauty is responsible for the classic wheel shaped webs you see in the garden. A superb architect, she'll build and with infinite patience repair her perfect insect trap. She sits in the middle of the web with extended legs feeling for insect contact, and then jiggle the web to entangle the prey, before running out, parcelling it up and injecting a paralysing venom into the package which it would eat/drink at leisure.

 

[Peteaud]

 

[RiflemanSmith]

White Widow

Jagged spider

OBT

 

[ianrauk]

They are such beautiful creatures.

 

[Peteaud]

They are such beautiful creatures.