Warm … thy home … thy meat and drink supply’d with tender care, thou trasient trav’ller of an ancient race, would that I might … trace thy meanderings … sceptered potentate of spider-land.

-HP Lovecraft writing as Edward Softly, 1920, “Lament for the Spider”

It’s just one big spider after another!

Scientists have unearthed a completely new species of spider hiding in sand dunes on the Israel-Jordan border.  With a leg span that stretches 5.5 inches, the spider, called Cerbalus aravensis, is the biggest of its type in the Middle East.

This discovery is hot on the heels of other spider news.  Scientists (in October 2009) found the world’s largest species of golden orb-weaver spider tucked away in the wilds of Madagascar. The discovery marks the first identification of a new Nephila spider since back in 1879.   Females of the new species, Nephila komaci, measure a whopping 4 to 5 inches in diameter!  As is typical of spiders, males are smaller at about an inch across!  Still plenty big!

Most everyone has at one time heard of, or seen the incredible pictures of camel-spiders.  If there was ever a type-cast for a Sci-Fi horror movie, it’s this thing.  It is fearless, huge, and hisses.  Plus, a simple Google of the term “camel spider” shows soldiers carrying a string of monstrous looking Giegerish spiders.  Ugh!  These skitterers of the sand can easily reach 5″ across, and love to creep into tents or tunnels just when you least suspect them!

But there’s more!  Spiders are old!  Really old!  On February 2010, scientists found a 165 million years old spider fossil. It dates to the middle Jurassic era.  Someone tell Spielberg – “Jurassic Park:  Invasion of the Spiders”!

It was recently uncovered, through the analysis of many species’ DNA that spiders may have been one of the first organisms to emerge on life, perhaps another reason for us to have a supernatural fear of them.  There are spiders that jump, that smell blood like we smell perfume, and even all vegetarian spiders.

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