I'm in South Korea right now, and since I've been here I've been fascinated/terrified by the GIANT FUCKING SPIDERS they have swarming this place. I am not sure if they're dangerous. I just know they're big.

I'm from Alaska, to me a spider with a half-inch leg span is pretty big. These things, they're up to 4 inches across. Fortunately they seem pretty laid back. I'm not sure if they're seriously poisonous or not. I'd rather not find out.

Anyhow, I'd been meaning to take pictures for a while now, and I was out riding by bike when I decided WTF, why not. I saw a row of the yellow and black ones on a bridge, so I spent a little while obstructing traffic and learning my manual focus so I could take some pictures.

About 20 minutes after I got the first pictures (where I decided to turn around and head back to base) I got a flat tire and had to walk the rest of the way back. Gave me plenty of time to notice more spiders.


This is the first one I took which looked good. Still trying to figure out my manual focus, but it looks cool.


These things like to build their webs between two objects 1-3 feet apart. Any two objects will do. I first saw one between a sign post and a concrete wall on a sidewalk


The place I saw them that gives me the fucking creeps is on the handrails on a staircase I take every day on my way to work.


What's extra suck is that when it rains, sometimes they'll gather on the underside of the hand rail. >>SHUDDER<< I damn near got a handful of spider.


I remember reading once that the idea of farming spiders to harvest their silk was impractical, because spiders couldn't be kept in close quarters in large numbers without killing each other. Well, I think I've found evidence to the contrary. All those little specks? Spiders. That dumpster thing is full of manure, so I'm guessing they eat well.


Here's a better look at some of those.


I figure some of you might want this as a wallpaper, so here it is full size. (edit: Forgot that I'd adjusted the contrast and saved it with higher compression)
http://finnesey.org/spiders/IMG_1435.JPG (580-ish kb)


These things, I think are related to a type of spider that scared the fuck out of me all the time in Hokkaido. They build their webs BIG. The biggest I've seen was about 15-20 feet across, if you count it's supporting lines. They'd build their webs between trees, especially the trees lining the sidewalks in Ainosato...and sometimes they'd build them ACROSS the sidewalks. These things look kind of similar, IIRC, and their webs are very similar (HUGE!)


Some of these are getting up there. I once rode through the web of one of those hokkaido spiders on my bicycle, fucking freaked out and crashed, reopening an old wound on my hand when I hit the pavement. I hear the bite is pretty painful, but not really dangerous. What's extra creepy is how they MOVE. The yellow spiders are really slow, contemplative, and graceful. These things move like Shelob from Lord of the Rings. This one is on a line running from a power line to the crops below.


Correct me if I'm wrong, any spider-scholars out there. These things are about the size of grapes, BTW.



I'm too much of a pussy to hold something close in so I could show you scale, but this fucker is about 4 inches across in the legs.
I think the little ones are the the males.



BONUS PICTURES!

MOOOOOO! This isn't the same farm as the spider orgy.


Apparantly it's pepper-drying season, cause these things were all over.


And a nice wallpaper-sized version for you folks. (500-ish kb)
http://finnesey.org/spiders/peppers-desktop.jpg