Spider vs Spider

So, today I learnt that one of the major predators for grey huntsman spiders is...

Daddy-long-legs spiders.

Apparently the daddy-long-legs are quite well known for having other spiders "over for dinner", if you know what I mean.  Known for preying on redback spiders and huntsmans, among others.

I find this absolutely fascinating, because daddy-long-legs spiders are small and spindly, completely harmless (to humans), easy to pick up with one's bare hands, and look like this:

While grey huntsmans (one of my favourite spiders, but not in the same league of "my goodness, that's an adorable spider" as jumping spiders) are rather large and stocky, a bit on the "ooh, scary spider!" side, and look like this:

They aren't dangerous to humans, either, and (according to the Museum of Tropical North Queensland) have never actually been known to bite - unlike the brown huntsman spiders, which apparently bite quite readily, and are painful, if not dangerous.  Not that I've ever been bitten by a huntsman of either kind, even though I've probably deserved it.  I have tried to move them on occasion, and that never went as smoothly as I'd hoped.

I played a wonderful "game" with a grey huntsman the other night, where I went to great lengths to catch it using the whole "container and paper" trick, only to find it sitting on the outside of the container staring at me as if to say "What?"  

Then I screamed a little, dropped the container and jumped back a step, while it ran away very fast.

Anyway, the idea of something the size of a small sultana being a major predator for something the size of a large prune is fascinating.

And here I thought daddy-long-legs were the also-rans of the spider community.

Fennecs and Pikas Alive Alive-O

I want one of these:



Anyone know where I can get a fennec?

Fennecs, by the way, start with the letter "f", not the letter "p". I mention this, because I was once involved in a ridiculously drawn out game of categories when someone said we had to come up with every animal we could think of starting with the letter "p".

There are a lot of them, and at one point the word "pika" came into my mind. Someone tried to challenge me on it, but I stuck to my guns. Sadly, I described it as a type of fox with really big ears. This not only sounded like something completely made up, but it was also quite incorrect.

A pika looks like this:



It is, as you can see, a type of lagomorph with relatively small ears, given the ear size of other lagomorphs like rabbits and hares.

"What in the Zharkian Empire is a lagomorph?" I hear you cry. "If it's some kind of rodent, why don't you just say so?"

Well, gentle readers, it turns out that rabbits, hares and pikas are not rodents at all. They belong to a completely different order of animal - lagomorpha. They bear but a superficial resemblance to members of the rodentia order. And yet, despite this, members of both orders are equally likely to pee in your hand. You get that.

So, while a pika may superficially resemble a degu:



Or, perhaps a chinchilla:



It is, in fact, nothing at all like a small fox with large ears. That would be a fennec:



That's "fennec" with an "f".

Tapir

I was looking up pudus, which lead me to dik-diks, which lead me to ungulates in general, which lead me to Tapirs...



I've gotta say, every now and then you just look at the world around you and think "God has the weirdest ideas."

It's good, though. Even though I didn't even know what a pudu or a dik-dik was a year ago (and had never seen a photograph of a tapir), I can't help but think it would be incredibly sad to live in a world where pudus and dik-diks never existed.

I love living in a world of wonders.