I think it's a bird's responsibility to be big enough for spiders to not eat them. The arachnids are just being entrepreneurial.

I've missed the conversation, but I feel compelled to add that I spent at least $30 at the bar, and I tipped.

That total? WAY off.

Also? $6 a drink when the drinks are that piss poor is hard to forget.

Realizing that it's a phobia, and therefore irrantional, I still have to come down on the side of spiders should not be big enough to eat birds.

Pfft. The Sydney funnelweb is one of the deadliest spiders on earth. Yet its venom is not that dangerous to cats, dogs and most other mammals. It is, however, unusually toxic to primates, including humans. Which feature evolved without a single primate on the entire freakin' continent.

This? Is what spiders should not be. Size, for me, is a distant second. (Though as the Sydney funnelweb is large enough to snack on small rodents, you'd probably find it uncomfortably big as well. Me, if it's that venomous, I damn well want to be able to see it.)

They're insects (edit: or not - are arachnids insects? Do I care? They're bugs, damnit!), and they hunt and eat birds.

Driver ants will hunt and eat chickens. and indeed anything too stupid to get out of their way. Also? Completely blind. It's a neat trick.

That's just wrong. Things with exoskeletons shouldn't be able to devour things with endoskeletons (is that a word?). It's against Nature and violates the Circle of Life. Wrong like a wrong thing.

Well, aside from the aforementioned driver ants (and army ants in South America), there are also jellyfish which will happily eat fish (ok, pretty emotionlessly, as they're a bit short in the brain department), the same goes for squid, mantis shrimp, sea anemones and octopus. Crabs will eat baby turtles, among other things. On land, large scorpions and centipedes will not be averse to a bit of endothermic prey. That brings us up to ten, I think. What else? Something should be eating frogs, I think. Well, tarantulas do, though there are tarantulas in Texas that have a symbiotic relationship with the little hoppers. They share living space. The frog eats any insects that might chow down on the spider's eggs, and the tarantula eats or scares off most things that would come looking for the frog. Not only does it bite, but it can fire off its hairs at an opponent's eyes and face. The hairs are barbed and tough to remove.

Anyway, you can get to the dozen by variations on the above themes (e.g. Portuguese men-o-war, which strictly aren't jellyfish, and so on), but I think I'll leave it at that. This is without getting into parasites and scavengers, of course.

OK, no spiders here, but speaking of animals and knowing things about them:

One of the gifts Annabel has received from doting friends and family is a rather sweet little book called Hug, starring a baby chimpanzee. Everyone who is not me who has picked the book up so far and read it to Annabel starts out, "Look, Annabel! It's a baby monkey." To which I'm wordlessly screaming, "No, you idiot, that's a chimpanzee! Which is obvious because it has no tail and alternates between standing upright and knuckle-walking. Didn't anyone else read National Geographic when they were kids?"

And then I wistfully think that if billytea were here, he'd understand my silent indignation.

And then I wistfully think that if billytea were here, he'd understand my silent indignation.

It's true. Bugs me too when people do that.

Anyone else picture billytea leaning back with a smoke after a post like 4990?

Anyone else picture billytea leaning back with a smoke after a post like 4990?

Bailey's on ice, to be accurate.

Billytea, I'm with you on wanting to be able to see them. I knew about the Sydney funnelweb, but didn't realise they were large; Australia has another spider - what is it, the wolf spider? - that's really uncomfortably large, and venomous as well.

But it doesn't need to be certifiable poison to kill me; bees aren't poisonous. An allergy confers some different parametres on things.

And no fair with the ant example, because a species that hunts in bunches is way different from a single ant, hunting and consuming larger species all by its lonesome.

I think it's a bird's responsibility to be big enough for spiders to not eat them. The arachnids are just being entrepreneurial.

Freaky like a freaky thing, that view. I love you to death and will feed you birds or anything else you like because I love you to death and beyond, but that's just freaky. Entrepeneurial spiders. Right. Pfffft.

Billytea, I'm with you on wanting to be able to see them. I knew about the Sydney funnelweb, but didn't realise they were large; Australia has another spider - what is it, the wolf spider? - that's really uncomfortably large, and venomous as well.

Strictly speaking, all spiders are venomous. The wolf spider isn't overly dangerous, though anaphylaxis would probably be a risk. More of a risk, though, with our bulldog ants, especially the jumping jacks (so called because they will jump about a foot to attack you. They're highly aggressive buggers with big jaws and potent venom; people have died from an adverse reaction to a single sting.)

And no fair with the ant example, because a species that hunts in bunches is way different from a single ant, hunting and consuming larger species all by its lonesome.

The driver ants creep me out far more than funnelwebs do. if a person is unfortunate enough to be caught in their path (granted, a person would have to be incapacitated, and no risk of anaphylactic shock, as they don't sting) - white-fonted because I find it disturbing, and I figure others might - death comes through asphyxiation as they invade the throat and eat the lungs from the inside.

So, y'know, I give them a pass. Plus, being ants, the genetic entity is the whole nest, rather than a single ant (as most don't reproduce).

True, but they don't hunt as singletons, do they? The ants, I mean? One of them versus one of me, I could squash its tiny head. The danger's in a group.

And the difference between venoms does make a huge difference. Truly. Trust me: been there, nearly died because of it, courtesy of the shiny black spider with the read smeary mark on her belly, aged nine (me, not the spider). There are degrees between venom types - some are way more venomous than others.

Hell, California's main genuinely venomous spider is the brown recluse, which rarely comes above ground and is mostly a danger to people like sewer workers and people who work in tunnels. But the bite will wreak severe havoc on people with or without any particular venom sensitivity; Nic would be very close to being as at risk as I am, and he isn't allergic. They're just truly toxic buggers. The skin begins to rot off, and it happens fast, and it spreads.

Whereas a bee sting would give him a bump, while I require epipen at warp nine, and a fast ride to the casualty ward.