Probably illegal to export them. You'll just have to selectively breed some over there, I think. Or send your chickens on holidays.

I believe that the huge hairy ones that occasionally hurtle across the living room carpet are called "Wolf Spiders". I really like them and always leave them alone, because they keep the place clean and are rather cute. It may be an urban myth, but I heard that their venom is actually poisonous enough to kill you, but their jaws are too weak to bite through your skin, so they're harmless (unless you let them bite you on a wound, of course). Could this really be true?

Breadmaster] I've never heard that one, but my Dad has been bitten by Wolfspiders many times. He claims it is akin to an ant bite. Congrats on your publication by the way.

It seems difficult to get information about the precise toxicology of the spider venom. Or I'm not looking hard enough. No matter. A factsheet about huntsman spiders is here: huntsman. I think up here we tend to call all large black spiders "huntsman" spiders. A factsheet about Australian wolf spiders is here: wolf. The legs seem quite different, and huntsman spiders seem to be larger.

Why can I never prevent myself looking at pages about spiders? I'm going to be creeped out and itchy for hours, now.

There are also Harvestmen which look like spiders but aren't... they're the really skinny, ethereal- and anorexic-looking things.

Cheers to Dr Q with regards to my minor success in Celebdaq. Now I fully understand what happens on a kneecapping. Call me naive, but I never realised that they took all of your existing shares away and you had to start form scratch again. Hmmm... well, as you can imagine, that was a bit of a surprise... On the up-side, I've now got a lovely green wad next to my name. On the downside, I had oodles of Arnie...