A (mostly) vegetarian spider: "A small jumping spider has taken to hunting plants instead of bugs. Bagheera kiplingi dodges throngs of aggressive ants to feast on the leaf-tip morsels of acacia shrubs, making it the first mostly vegetarian spider known to science."
posted by dhruva on Oct 13, 2009 - 37 comments

Be glad you don't live in Bowen, Queensland. The town is being overrun by giant bird-eating spiders, which are venomous and as big as a man's hand. They're the biggest spiders in Australia, a land known for monstrous creepy crawlies.
posted by Chocolate Pickle on May 6, 2009 - 135 comments

Yet another reason to be spider-averse - traumatic insemination.
posted by idiomatika on Apr 30, 2009 - 39 comments

Tree of Bees? Hills that move? A reflective humorous post about living in Southern California via mockable.org
posted by will wait 4 tanjents on Apr 7, 2009 - 65 comments

The Insect Close-ups Flickr Pool is full of fascinating pictures. There are all kinds of wonderful images to be found, of spiders, ladybugs, hornets, aphids, grasshoppers, worms, water striders and those superstars of the insect world, bees and butterflies. You can also search a map for pictures by location. If you want to take your own bug photographer Mark Plonsky has written a short how-to guide. He has taken some pretty great photographs of insects himself.
posted by Kattullus on Nov 21, 2008 - 14 comments

Spiders invading Europe. Spiders invading England. Spiders invading Pittsburgh. Spiders invading your produce section. Spiders invading other spiders. [more inside]
posted by longsleeves on Oct 17, 2008 - 53 comments

The Burning Crater of Darvaza. [Via.]
posted by homunculus on Mar 26, 2008 - 31 comments

Spiders in Antarctica
posted by dov3 on Feb 19, 2008 - 60 comments

All hail 70s-era Shatner! He began his career with some rather prestigious projects, appearing in The Brothers Karamazov and Judgment at Nuremberg, as well as some rather high profile appearance in Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But even then, there were hints of exploitation, such as 1961's The Explosive Generation, in which Shatner played a teacher whose job is endangered when she speaks candidly to kids about sex. And there was 1962's The Intruder, a Roger Corman film from 1963 in which Shatner played a carpetbagging racist inciting violence in a southern town. (Clip.) And, of course, there was Incubus from 1965, a horror film in Esperanto. (Clip.) But, after Star Trek, at the start of the 70s, something went haywire. [more inside]
posted by Astro Zombie on Nov 16, 2007 - 63 comments

Them's some big webs!
posted by BlackLeotardFront on Aug 30, 2007 - 52 comments

Unusual ways of getting high: deliberately being bitten on the tongue by a cobra; injecting spider venom.
posted by nickyskye on May 11, 2007 - 36 comments

An absolutely terrifying new anti-AIDS campaign has been introduced in France. Not safe for work or arachnophobes.
posted by Partial Law on May 2, 2007 - 47 comments

Spiders [nsfw]. A weird animated short by the Danish artist Christen Bach via aniBOOM.
posted by nickyskye on Jan 30, 2007 - 18 comments

Australia is well known for having more than it's share of dangerous wildlife. However only a few examples are well known outside of the continent. The funnelweb spider might be Australia's most infamous horror. But the redback (a relative of the American black widow) and mouse spider both deserve your respect as well. Long hyped as causing severe ulceration, the reputation of the white-tailed spider might not be as deserved but is still a spider of concern. (more inside...)
posted by weretable and the undead chairs on Aug 2, 2006 - 86 comments

All You Need Is Love. Sometimes, love is all you need. Or maybe aerosolized MDMA
[via longbough]
posted by Freen on Jun 28, 2006 - 45 comments

Nature is so fucking horrible.
posted by jonson on Jun 4, 2006 - 79 comments

Best of the web: spitting net-casting diving writing smiling wrestling (mpg) painting myth blood-craving gravity-defying
posted by dhruva on Nov 24, 2005 - 29 comments

I clicked this link today while perusing this MSNBC blog (which is occasionally amusing). It seems that ArticleBot's hackles have been raised, and they are on the defensive against mainstream media (aka MSM). I'm not exactly sure what their point is, but I really hate it when people "overuse" the "quotation" marks in their "unique content". I would have totally left it alone if they had not called attention to themselves by responding in this manner. Plus the assistance they are offering reminds me a little of these MIT geniuses (previously discussed on MeFi here and here) except designed to spider search engines. I'm sure it's completely legal, but the ethics are questionable to say the least.
posted by shoppingforsanity on Apr 26, 2005 - 89 comments

The Itsy-Bitsy Spider. I was looking online to try and identify the freaking huge spiders I saw today (possibly wolf spiders), and I came across this hand spider identification chart. Slightly unnerving when the spiders randomly wiggle. Perhaps more so if you have a problem with spiders.
posted by kayjay on Aug 8, 2003 - 71 comments

Walking Things is an environment that generates small, walking computational organisms. "Each walking thing is built up from totally random conditions. Appearance, behavior, and walking characteristics are all assigned from a range enabling effective, functional mobility. Click on a walking thing to permutate its characteristics".

Just one of the very many wonderful (open source) creations at levitated.net (more bugs with bling here). Kick off your shoes, fill your coffee cup or wine glass, and dip in.
posted by taz on Jul 2, 2003 - 12 comments

The camel spider will call you a slut and make fun of your religion. Not bad enough they have death & destruction and every other war-related hazard, our troops also have to worry about chancing on this nasty creature (quicktime clip). Many of the more terrifying stories are urban legends but personal accounts about these and other desert varmints are still pretty scary. Me, I worry about a spider with a nasty bite that's a little closer to home. (gross out warning!)
posted by madamjujujive on Apr 2, 2003 - 23 comments

Keep Grubby Alive! This flash game reminded me of some nightmares I had as a child. But that's a good thing . . .I think.
posted by jeremias on Dec 13, 2002 - 9 comments

Spiders weave huge natural wonder in B.C. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
posted by nemesis on Nov 28, 2002 - 17 comments

Who would guess that art and insects and spiders can go hand in hand? We have art made using insect larvae, mygalomorph patterns, fractal insects, cool insects for sale, virtual insect art, and insect and spider stamps. What's you favorite insect art?
posted by Morphic on Nov 7, 2002 - 12 comments

They're farther along than I thought... You may have heard about Nexia Biotechnology, who have put spider genes into goats to get milk with spider silk protein in it. I thought it was still in the research phase, but Nexia have apparently gone to market with the stuff. They've signed agreements with several manufacturers to produce spider silk protein-based products such as lightweight ballistic armor (like Kevlar, only lighter and non-toxic to produce) for the armed forces and super-strong sutures and prosthetic ligaments for medical supply companies.
posted by RylandDotNet on Jul 21, 2002 - 7 comments

Got Silk. ''Oh, it's not that weird,'' Nexia's president and C.E.O., Jeffrey D. Turner, says as we walk around the pens, being nibbled constantly by aroused goats. ''What we're doing here is ingeniously simple,'' he says. ''We take a single gene from a golden orb-weaving spider and put it into a goat egg. The idea is to make the goat secrete spider silk into its milk.''
posted by srboisvert on Jun 16, 2002 - 18 comments