HighBeams
06-03-2012, 04:16 PM
I'm not really sure where to post this. We don't have a News of the Weird section (at least not yet :)) and this actually strikes me as prophetic in nature. But here's the report. This really made me shudder on several counts. First, I absolutely HATE spiders! IMHO, spiders personify complete and absolute evil. (Yes, I do sometimes picture Satan as a large black widow spider.) I'd rather have an entire house full of bugs (even cockroaches!) than have one spider in my house. Second, though, I'm highly curious about the fact that experts cannot seem to identify this arachnid. How on earth can they not know what kind of spider this is if there are sufficient quantities of them to "overrun" a town? It's one thing for a known species to show up in a place that they're not known for living in, but it's quite another to have a totally new species show up in a large quantity in a human populated place. It's also puzzling how this spider species is not known if it's such an aggressive arachnid as reported. I've mentioned before, I think, that I tend to be paranoid (:o), but this strikes me as being a strange event along the lines of the tremendous increase in severe weather and earthquakes being reported in diverse places around the world.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/03/2-people-dead-after-swarms-venomous-spiders-invade-indian-town/#ixzz1wkxCUHC4
2 people dead after swarms of venomous spiders invade Indian town
Published June 03, 2012
NewsCore
SADIYA, India – A town in India has suddenly been overrun by swarms of venomous spiders, leaving two people dead after being bitten.
It may sound like a B-grade horror movie, but residents of the town of Sadiya, in Assam state, say that on the evening of May 8 as they were celebrating a Hindu festival swarms of spiders suddenly appeared and attacked them, The Times of India reported.
Over the next few days two people -- a man, Purnakanta Buragohain, and an unnamed school boy -- died after being bitten by the spiders. Scores more turned up at the town's hospital with spider bites.
Local resident Jintu Gogoi spent a day in the hospital complaining of excruciating pain and nausea after being bitten. He said weeks later his finger was still blackened and swollen.
District authorities are also panicking -- and they are considering spraying the town with the insecticide DDT.
Locals say the most terrifying aspect is that spiders appear in swarms and their behavior is highly aggressive.
"It leaps at anything that comes close. Some of the victims claimed the spider latched on to them after biting. If that is so, it needs to be dealt with carefully. The chelicerae and fangs of this critter are quite powerful," head of the department of life sciences at Dibrugarh University Dr. L.R. Saikia said.
Teams of Indian arachnid experts have flocked to the town, hoping to identify the species, but so far they have drawn a blank.
They say it could be a tarantula, a black wishbone or even a funnel-web spider -- or it could be a whole new species.
One thing they agree on is that it is not native to the area as there is no record of venomous spiders in Assam. The black wishbone and funnel-web are native to Australia.....(Continued)
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/03/2-people-dead-after-swarms-venomous-spiders-invade-indian-town/#ixzz1wkxCUHC4
2 people dead after swarms of venomous spiders invade Indian town
Published June 03, 2012
NewsCore
SADIYA, India – A town in India has suddenly been overrun by swarms of venomous spiders, leaving two people dead after being bitten.
It may sound like a B-grade horror movie, but residents of the town of Sadiya, in Assam state, say that on the evening of May 8 as they were celebrating a Hindu festival swarms of spiders suddenly appeared and attacked them, The Times of India reported.
Over the next few days two people -- a man, Purnakanta Buragohain, and an unnamed school boy -- died after being bitten by the spiders. Scores more turned up at the town's hospital with spider bites.
Local resident Jintu Gogoi spent a day in the hospital complaining of excruciating pain and nausea after being bitten. He said weeks later his finger was still blackened and swollen.
District authorities are also panicking -- and they are considering spraying the town with the insecticide DDT.
Locals say the most terrifying aspect is that spiders appear in swarms and their behavior is highly aggressive.
"It leaps at anything that comes close. Some of the victims claimed the spider latched on to them after biting. If that is so, it needs to be dealt with carefully. The chelicerae and fangs of this critter are quite powerful," head of the department of life sciences at Dibrugarh University Dr. L.R. Saikia said.
Teams of Indian arachnid experts have flocked to the town, hoping to identify the species, but so far they have drawn a blank.
They say it could be a tarantula, a black wishbone or even a funnel-web spider -- or it could be a whole new species.
One thing they agree on is that it is not native to the area as there is no record of venomous spiders in Assam. The black wishbone and funnel-web are native to Australia.....(Continued)