Spiders

See this little guy? ( He's about an inch, or 2.5 cm long.) We saved him......or at least I would have if I hadn't been told to get away. He was entangled in a spider's web. With a huge Redback walking towards him. BUT he shed his tail when we were rescuing him!

A Redback is a venomous spider related to the Black Widow Spider. Boy was that little skink lucky. He was VERY close to being bitten. We let him go in the garden.

This is the spider. See the red on her back? She was quite large. Her abdomin was about the size of a pea. We get them in the corners of our house outside. Usually, spiders are safe around us. Our rule is anything that kills flies and mosquitoes is a friend of ours. Unfortunately, for this spider and her eight egg sacs, she picked the wrong place to make a web. The laundry room is no place for a Redback.

Then a couple of days later, another Redback caught a HUGE moth ( about 3 inches long). Her web was on the outside of the laundry room window. It was too late for the moth as the spider had already bitten it by the time we noticed. Redbacks are not aggressive spiders and you pretty much have to pick them up, for it to bite. But because we are such great bug catchers, they have to go.