The Snake-Eating Spider
Spiders are creepy enough by themselves but throw snakes into the mix, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a heart attack. If you’re one of those unlucky people who suffer from both arachnophobia and ophidiophobia, you might want to skip this entry for the good of your health. But that wasn’t an option for poor Tania Robertson when she went to work one fateful Tuesday morning in 2004. Tania was just your average receptionist, working at an electrical firm in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and as she parked her car in the company lot that day, she was totally unaware of the Lovecraftian horror awaiting her inside.
As Tania rounded her desk, she came face-to-face with a scene straight out of David Attenborough’s worst nightmares. There was a five-inch Aurora house snake in the corner of her office, hanging limply from the web of a brown button spider. The brown button spider shares an striking resemblance to the black widow (pictured above), and while its bite doesn’t pack quite the same punch, it has enough venom to kill a snake, along with the appetite to eat one. While Tania spent all day Tuesday trying to find someone brave enough to take on Shelob, the spider kept an eye (eyes?) on its kill. As Wednesday rolled around—and Tania still hadn’t found someone willing to risk becoming dessert, the spider got down to business. It spun a web around the snake and began dragging it farther off the ground, all the while pigging out on its legless prey. Fortunately for Tania, she eventually found an arachnologist willing to capture the spider and dispose of the serpent. Hopefully, he also figured out how the snake got in there in the first place.
Now that would be enough of a reason to turn around and go back home, I do believe.
Coffee out on the patio again today.
