[email protected]

In a message dated 5/30/02 6:55:37 AM Central Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:

<< Are you in Florida? Darin says sometimes the weird versions of spiders
sometimes hitch rides on produce coming from the jungles and arrive like
illegal aliens off the boats! >>

Yes, I am in FL. I wonder if they're the same creature then?
The Spiders we refer to as Banana Spiders here, are definitely large, but no
where close to the Carolina Wolf Spiders we have.
They do have a golden abdomen, very pretty actually. And they do build large
webs in between trees. From what I've read about them, they are harmless to
humans. I've taken a few pictures of them while hiking with the kids. They're
really cool looking.
No "two step" snakes (thank goodness). All of the poisonus versions of
snakes that we have, you can get treatment for. The one that scares me the
most is the famous Cotton Mouth, or Water Moccasin.
On the snake topic, I just found out that more people die from snake bite
than any other animal death. Around 100,000 people world wide die every year.
Makes the U.S. look like a really great place to live, we don't lose very
many people to snake bites here.
The second most deadly animal was BEES/WASPS, with about 10,000 deaths per
year.
The lowly Shark was at the bottom of the top 10 deadly animals, only an
average of 8 deaths per year.!!!
Maybe swimming in the Gulf shouldn't scare me so much?

Ren