If you've got a fear of spiders, then you probably shouldn't check out this story.
Remote school students dig up the mystery of Maningrida's aquatic tarantulas.

In 2015, headlines describing the stuff of horror movies brought the tiny town of Maningrida, population 2,000, to world attention.
International media outlets described the town, 500km east of Darwin, as being in the grip of a "mega cluster" of venomous tarantulas that can "rip open your skin".
The real story was much less dramatic, but so much about the lives of the large population of tarantulas that dive underwater remains a mystery to scientists that the local school has begun investigating.
The West Arnhem Land town sits near a floodplain believed to host the highest concentration of tarantulas in the world.

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Grant
Darwin NT

This tiny creature (some kind of moth) visited me today. It landed on a lampshade.
It was no more than one inch from nose to butt.
(I took this photo with my iPhone 7 with no special settings or lenses.)

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~Sue~

That's beautiful!

Lots of termites!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/science/termite-mounds-brazil.html

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termite

Next only reflecting on the color difference here, except for the flavor it also could represent, for just the background.

The extraordinary life and death of the world’s oldest known spider

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~Sue~

How Close-Up Glamour Shots Are Generating Buzz for Bees

The pictures were taken for science, but found a wider audience because they’re gorgeous and a little trippy.

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~Sue~

Bee swarm creates alarm for pedestrians in central Hobart.

A roadwork sign above a busy street in central Hobart has been swarmed by bees.

President of the Tasmanian Beekeepers Association Lindsay Bourke said it is not unusual to see bee swarms in cities.
"They're in some of the churches and various commercial buildings and also in some residential properties," he said.
"A swarm comes out of every hive every year unless a commercial beekeeper or someone who knows about bees prevents them from swarming.
"The way to prevent them from swarming is to give them room for their expansion."

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Grant
Darwin NT

A roadwork sign above a busy street in central Hobart has been swarmed by bees.

That's very surreal.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

The Wasp Wants a Zombie. The Cockroach Says ‘No’ With a Karate Kick.

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~Sue~

Got this image from Physics-Astronomy on Facebook.
"Photographer Murat Öztürk captured an ant trying to take down a flying wasp"



Tried to link directly to the image but couldn't.

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~Sue~

That's a great shot.

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Grant
Darwin NT

The Dracula ant, nature's fastest mover on record, can snap its jaws at 320kph.

Researchers say the tiny blood-sucking creature powers its mandibles by pressing the tips together, spring loading them with internal stresses that release when one mandible slides across the other — similar to a human finger snap.
"These ants are fascinating as their mandibles are very unusual," said animal biology and entomology professor Andrew Suarez, who helped lead the study.

"Even among ants that power-amplify their jaws, the Dracula ants are unique. Instead of using three different parts for the spring, latch and lever arm, all three are combined in the mandible.
"The ants use this motion to smack other arthropods, likely stunning them, smashing them against a tunnel wall or pushing them away. The prey is then transported back to the nest, where it is fed to the ants' larvae."

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Grant
Darwin NT

Well I just gave a few dozen flies the head job of their lives, I doubt that I hear any complaints coming from my industrial vac. ;-)

LOL

A funny story about crickets

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~Sue~

Australian police respond to spider death threats

According to police, a passerby raised the alarm after hearing a "screaming" toddler and a man repeatedly shouting "Why don't you die?"

But after arriving at a home in suburban Perth, they found the man had merely been trying to kill a spider.

In a tweet, police said there had been no injuries during the incident - "except to spider."

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Some don't mind spiders crawling in your face...
https://twitter.com/RoyalMarines/status/1082249240011788288

Some don't mind spiders crawling in your face...
https://twitter.com/RoyalMarines/status/1082249240011788288

I'm sure I could hold still with a tarantula crawling on my face/head, but I'm also sure I could not qualify as a Royal Marine.

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~Sue~

'Spiders raining' in Brazil leave student who filmed phenomenon "stunned and scared"

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~Sue~

'Spiders raining' in Brazil leave student who filmed phenomenon "stunned and scared"

What the hey.. It will be raining frogs next.

I think I would be happier with frogs than spiders.

The thing that amazes me is that only spiders were caught up in the gust of wind or weather anomaly?

I hate spiders (near me) so this would be my worst nightmare.

Think I will be closing my windows and vacuuming every corner of my bedroom tonight.

Thanks Suzie-Q ;o) <eek>