Friday, 1 October 2010

More about spiders

Did you know that spiders shed their skins like snakes? I didn't. I used to feel sorry for the poor, dried up, eight-legged husks I saw on the floor. Poor things, I thought; didn't get enough to eat and starved to death. Now I know differently. Our kitchen ceiling spider spend three days huddled up doing nothing.

On the fourth day, it suddenly got lively again and as it walked away, it left behind what looked like a dead spider, an empty, ghostly shell. "It's shed its skin," said my partner. "Nonsense, spiders don't shed their skins," I insisted. Then I hit Google, and found out I was wrong. They do! And each time they do it, they grow...

2 comments:

Teresa Ashby said...

Nothing makes my skin crawl more than finding a huge empty spider husk and wondering where and how big its former owner is!

Jackie Sayle said...

My Mum was given the husk of a tarantula. She can't touch it; she's terrified of spiders.