Vince wrote:

He was about 12 feet long. We felt sorry for him do we carefully cut the wire fence enough to allow him to get clear.

I'm still pondering this one. I supposed you did all your fence work from the side with the tail on it?

Ok, this brings back memories of the time I was running through the mountain jungles in the Phillipines and had to stop while a boa slithered across the path, a big boa. The fence would have had to be made out of cattle panels if that snake was going to fit through it.

No, opened the fence from the head end mate...he had a feed and was contented.

Those pythons in Asia are massive mate. I saw one on the banks of a creek after swallowing a small pig whole...he was HUGE, big enough to eat a man.

It's not just our snakes you have to keep an eye on out here in Australia...


Oh, Australia: home to everything completely horrifying about the natural world (except volcanoes, surprisingly enough).

A Golden silk orb-weaver spider can grow up to 5-6.9 cm (2-2.7 in) in body length, not counting the span of its legs. They spin strong yellow webs that are very large and can reach a meter in diameter. A large, strong web can mean only one thing: large, strong prey. These spiders don’t waste their time with the smallest insects and have been known to feed on birds and snakes.

Daniel Reardon happened to come across a brown tree snake about half a meter long that fell out of a tree and into the Golden orb spider’s web. These snakes eat birds, lizards, and small mammals, so it is a fairly formidable opponent.

The fight lasted for about an hour before coming to this horrifying conclusion:

Spider vs Snake

Guess Aussies don't take walks down forest paths before dawn. I've walked into many a spider webs heading out to the stand for the morning's hunt.

The golden orbs are the best, especially when you feel that soft lump hit the left cheek then you feel the web wrap around your face.
That spider is there some where and he isn't small

Tikka,

Thanks for the imagery. I got a nice shudder out of it!

Spiders do not normally bother me. Once they are on my person, especially if they are crawling on bare skin, that's when I can't handle them anymore.

The thought of a nice, venomous orb spider stick to my face... yeesh!