Speaking of spiders...

[twoeagles]

These little beasties are common in my lawn and actually not at all
aggressive. The fact that I could get down and shoot these pics
lying on my belly (and I hate spiders) is very telling. I have
hand fed them crickets in their burrows in my yard. They grab them
with a crunching sound. The Texas Brown Tarantula:

 

[syscom3]

Great pics!

When I get home tonight, I will take a picture of my mounted "bird eating tarantula" from French Guiana.

 

[mkloby]

Good eagles - how big are they? It's hard to tell from the picture. My wife would've sh*t a brick if she saw anything like that when we were in Texas.

 

[ToughOmbre]

The Texas Brown Tarantula:

Oh. Good thing you told us. For a minute there I thought they were pictures of Nancy Pelosi.

 

[twoeagles]

These are not really large; standing naturally as in this picture he covers
about a 4 1/2 inch circle. I don't mind the tarantula's so much as the
scorpions that find their way inside the house on a weekly basis. It is
far worse now that the lake where I live is up 40 feet, so many creatures
are pushed up to my little private mesa. More like a zoo now.

 

[mkloby]

These are not really large; standing naturally as in this picture he covers
about a 4 1/2 inch circle. I don't mind the tarantula's so much as the
scorpions that find their way inside the house on a weekly basis. It is
far worse now that the lake where I live is up 40 feet, so many creatures
are pushed up to my little private mesa. More like a zoo now.

In my book - that's a huge damn spider that might warrant a hollow point.

 

[Clave]

Excellent pics! 8)

And my Mrs would also freak if she saw a spider that large!

 

[Erich]

SWEET arachnids ....of sorts. hey are the two boyz for hire ? would love to do some trickery on some of my slow paying customers

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

That is just soooo cooool twoeagles, I kinda like spiders. We had a wolf spider when I was growing up. She kept the cricket population down. She got rather large, about 3 to 3.5 inches. Don't know what became of her.

 

[Thorlifter]

I don't mind spiders, but I don't think I could stand that. And I agree, scorpions are much worse. I put them in a coffee can, then throw them in the pond just to drown them.

 

[lesofprimus]

For someone who hates spiders, he got awefully close... And hand feeding them?? Looks like ur hatred has turned the other cheeck...

 

[A4K]

Great pics mate!

Our flat was always full of Huntsman spiders when I lived in sydney (Australia) which are also huge buggers, usually 10-15 cm round, and not dissimilar to some types of Tarantula, but also harmless.
They only come out at night, when they follow the scent trails of other insects and catch them while they're sleeping. Their only natural enemy (apart from humans) are wasps, which seek them out in their hiding places during the day.

What WAS worrying was the ever-presence of Funnel web spiders around the back of the flat, which are BAD news if you're not bloody careful...!

 

[Wayne Little]

Excellent pics! 8)

And my Mrs would also freak if she saw a spider that large!

Jesus, so would I! but I would still be the one who had to deal with it.....

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I hate spiders! Unfortunatly my wife likes them, so I am not able to kill them all.

 

[Clave]

I am the official Spider Wrangler in the house, armed with a glass and sheet of paper, on call day and night, but luckily the largest are only 2 or 3 inches...

 

[Matt308]

Gives me the willies just thinking about it. If one of those came scrabbling across the table right now, this fat man would break all land speed records.

 

[RabidAlien]

Where in Texas are you, TwoEagles? I live in the DFW metroplex, so the biggest thing we have with more than four legs are just those little grey jumping spiders. This fact has been duly noted by every buzzing and biting insect. The geckos are the only saving grace around here.

Awesome pics, though, dude! *g* It'd be awesome to set up a little diorama in your yard somewhere, and lure a tarantula out with a cricket....man, what shots you could get!