[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Silver

Hey, Crysalis, I hope you don't mind me sharing a relatively short spider story of my own? Awesome thread, btw...


When my son was fairly young, we lived in an apartment that had a nice long balcony and one day, we had a couple of creatures decided to make it their home.

In the small space between our driveway and the cinderblock wall separating our apartment from the neighbors grew a clump of maybe 3 yucca trees.* They started to push up the cement driveway, so the owner had them cut down and totally removed.* Not long afterwards, maybe within a week's time or so, we spied a big unique looking spider making her rather large web extending from the eave to the top of the railing.* A few days later, a second spider was building her home right next to the first one, whom we ended up naming her Elvira (the first one).* I don't recall what name we gave the second one.

We spent most of our free time sitting on the balcony watching them do their magic.* Sadly, after they had really put down stakes and everyone was comfy cozy, a crow flew in to grab the first spider.* I happened to be standing right on the other side, and the crow backed off and flew away.* A day or two later, I was standing inside the glass doors and thought I saw the crow make off with Elvira.* I stepped out onto the balcony and looked to the left and the crow was devouring her in a big tree next door.* Easy to assume the second one suffered the same fate.

I've tried to find the type of spiders they were on-line but haven't found anything like them.* They may have been the last of their kind.* They were big, broad, kind of flat looking with legs you could hardly make out looking at their backs always to us.* It was long ago, but I swear that they were bigger than a quarter across their backs.* Can't forget that experience, ever.

Hi Silver and thank you for sharing the story as they're most welcome. Sorry to hear what happened to the spiders and I hope you see their kind again as they can be elusive. I think it's cute that you gave them names.