CAROLINA NATURALLY: Six Terrifying Spiders That Will Haunt Your Dreams

Monday, September 3, 2012

Six Terrifying Spiders That Will Haunt Your Dreams

They're bite-sized and terrified of us, and they keep the mosquito population from obliterating mankind. In return, we rank them somewhere between bears and serial killers on the list of things you don't want to see in your home. We're speaking, of course, about spiders.

That's not to say we're overly sympathetic, though. After all, if spiders didn't want us to be terrified of them, they wouldn't run around looking so damn terrifying. Here are six terrifying spiders that will haunt your dreams ...

#6. Scorpion-Tailed Spider

RealMonstrosities.com

The scorpion-tailed spider is so named for the weird, elongated abdomen of the female, which may not sting like a scorpion, but can wiggle and curl around to presumably confuse its predators. You don't have to do the whole routine, honey, we were already confused enough.

#5. Ravine Trapdoor Spider

Looking like its body was sliced off and tattooed with some kind of satanic gateway, Cyclocosmia truncata actually uses its manhole-cover backside like, well, a manhole cover, sealing off its burrow from potential predators.

You know we're dealing with one hardcore fucker when its instinctive response to an attack is to present its ass.

#4. Blind Cave Huntsman

Sinopoda scurion was discovered only this year, and is considered the first known example of a "huntsman" spider completely losing its eyes. It doesn't need eyes to hunt in the perpetual darkness of its subterranean world, but we're not entirely convinced it doesn't at least want eyes.

What's to stop them from coming after ours?

#3. Tree Stump Spider

What "tree stump spider"? Is it behind the stick? Is it inside the stick? Is it behind the camera, photographing sticks? We don't under-

Oh. Oh no. How is this even a thing? This isn't a spider. It's a wang with a whole spider for testicles. Kill it dead. Now.

#2. Horned Spider

So it's a spider that wears a Satan mask? Seems about right to us. And it also comes in a variety of terrifying shapes ...

... and colors, you say?

Fantastic. Now if you could please see to it that we don't wake up next to one ever, that would be great. It's bad enough that we'll have them in our nightmares for time eternal.