According to the owner of Tesoro Escondido, the below arachnid is a banana spider. We first came across one of these alarming-looking spidies in Cahuita, Costa Rica, at the bus station. It was both scary and fascinating. Of course we couldn't get a picture because we were in transit. The first day we were at Tesoro, Todd went out looking for kebob skewers for our dinner and nearly walked into this web. We came to discover these beautiful spiders throughout the Tesoro grounds (I almost walked into one of the other webs).
The owner of Tesoro said that these arachnids are "non-toxic," however I did some research on the interweb and found conflicting information to this claim. Toxic or non-toxic, we stayed out of their way...although when we saw a gigantic locust in one of the webs, we couldn't help but take a closer look (more on the gigantic locusts later).
The below picture was taken in an effort to demonstrate the size of the spider...
The owner of Tesoro said that these arachnids are "non-toxic," however I did some research on the interweb and found conflicting information to this claim. Toxic or non-toxic, we stayed out of their way...although when we saw a gigantic locust in one of the webs, we couldn't help but take a closer look (more on the gigantic locusts later).
5 comments:
So how big is it? And where are its 7th and 8th legs? I only see six. (I have no idea why I started looking at all its legs. Maybe I was creeped out by its legs and started counting how many creepy legs could be crawling on me.)
Yeah, my mom noticed that it appears to have only 6 legs in the picture as well. I'm pretty sure it has 8 legs and that they are just not visible due to the camera angle.
I would say the spider was as big as my hand (not just it's body) - the entire thing, including all 8 of it's legs, was the size of my hand.
You know, I do like spiders. And I like big spiders. Why? Because big spiders eat big bugs. Therefore they are my friend. I don't like big bugs, so any creature that eats big bugs is a hero in my books. Yeah, a spider is a big bug, but it doesn't crawl on humans like cockroaches and centipedes and moths and other yucky critters.
That thing is a little too freaky for me!
Okay, so there are very good reasons I don't often travel to tropical locations - giant bugs being the main one. Winter is good - nothing ever gets too big before it freezes. Yikes!
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