True Story about a Cactus...

[Cibby]

A true story and its source was the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service in Adelaide.

A bloke and his family were on holidays in the United States and went to Mexico for a week. An avid cactus fan, the man bought one-metre high, rare and expensive cactus there. On arrival back home Australian Customs said it must be quarantined for 3 months.

He finally got his cactus home. Planted it in his backyard, and over time it grew to about 2 metres. One evening while watering his garden after a warm spring day, he gave the cactus a light spray. He was amazed to see the plant shiver all over, he gave it another spray and it shivered again.
He was puzzled so he rang the council who put him on to the state gardens people. After a few transfers he got the state's foremost cactus expert who asked him many questions. How tall is it? Has it flowered? Etc.

Finally he asked the most disturbing question. "Is your family in the house?" The bloke answered yes. The cactus expert said get out of the house NOW, get on to the front nature strip and wait for me; I will be there in 20 minutes.

Fifteen minutes later, 2 fire trucks, 2 police cars and an ambulance came screaming around the corner. A fireman got out and asked "Are you the bloke with the cactus?" I am, he said. A guy jumped out of the fire truck wearing what looked like a space suit, a breathing cylinder and mask attached to what looked like a scuba backpack with a large hose attached. He headed for the backyard and turned a flame-thrower on the cactus spraying it up and down.

After a few minutes the flame-thrower man stopped, the cactus stood smoking and spitting, half the fence was burnt and parts of the gardens were well and truly scorched. Just then the cactus expert appeared and laid a calming hand on the bloke's shoulder. "What the hell's going on?" he says. "Let me show you" says the cactus man. He went over to the cactus and picked away a crusty bit, the cactus was almost entirely hollow and filled with tiger striped bird-eating tarantula spiders, each about the size of two hand spans. :eek5: :eek5: :eek5:

The story was that this type of spider lays eggs in this type of cactus and they hatch and live in it as they grow to full size. When full size they release themselves. The cactus just explodes and about 150 dinner plate sized hairy spiders are flung from it, dispersing everywhere. They had been ready to pop. The aftermath was that the house and the adjoining houses had to be vacated and fumigated: police tape was put up outside the whole area and no one was allowed in for two weeks.

yuk! :eek5: :eek5: :eek5: :eek5:

[T.I.E]

now thats discusting.

[Colapop]

Is this story verifiable? I mean rather than just say WOW!! (as I'd like to) I've become too cynical to believe anything that either has not been verified by a reputable source or been seen by my own eyes.

[WRT]

Sound Familiar? (http://www.hoax-slayer.com/cactus-spider.html)

Hope you guys didnt all just rush out and attack your cacti with a flame thrower (well, unless you vidoed it, in which case - can I watch?)

[Cibby]

Sound Familiar? (http://www.hoax-slayer.com/cactus-spider.html)

Hope you guys didnt all just rush out and attack your cacti with a flame thrower (well, unless you vidoed it, in which case - can I watch?)


geeze.. just had to go and destroy my cool thread didnt cha..

IN fairness i didnt verify it as i cant access most hoax sites as my stupid bloody work firewall blocks everything, but hay, it is a cool storie right??? right???

:stupid:

[Sniper]

Damn, WRT got there first. I remeber posting this a year back and was corrected as well Cibby, so don't worry, you aren't alone.

[WRT]

"You're not alone
I'll wait till the end of time
Open your mind
Surely its plain to see"

Any email starting with the words "A true story" is almost inevitably false . . .

[The Beast]

Fuck I hate spiders.

[Colapop]

I woulda got there first but I couldn't be f*cked looking.

Here's a Camel Spider just to give you an idea of how cool spiders are!

(The bike is a Camel Spider too - the bike site (http://www.timcamerondesign.com.au/spider.htm))

[The Beast]

Nah mate, not cool at all. That thing is bloody huge, I can't even stand the ones bigger than a finger nail!:laugh:

[Nicksta]

ewwwwwww.......
cool story Cibby..... i hate spiders....

[kickingzebra]

Urg, I hate spiders too, even when marinated...

[Back Fire]

god damn that is sooooo cool!!

[Colapop]

Not cool?? That's why I threw in the pic of the bike. You should check out the site got a couple of nicely rendered drawings of the front forks (cutaway) and a few other cool bits of things on the main page.

[Sniper]

Pussies, all you NZ'ers think that your whitetails are huge. Come catch a baboon spider or dinner plate spider or bird eating spider. Camel spiders are pretty harmless things compared to them

[WRT]

Camel spiders are over hyped. There's actually two in that pic, their fighting and if you look at the size of the hand and sleeve you can see its quite the close up. Still a reasonable sized spider (compared to most we see in NZ), but not the monster everyone makes out. Plus, if their really so dangerous, do you think that soldier would be picking it up with a bare hand?

What is it with people believing everything that they get emailed? Dont even get me started on the people who reckon that some dude in a god forsaken SA country is really going to deposit 50 million US in their bank account.

[Sniper]

WRT, don't let them onto my con.

[Cibby]

Fuck I hate spiders.


ug i know.. same.. *shudders*

[Patrick]

No such thing as the Camel spider, said some spidy expert... yet another hoax...

[scumdog]

Why are SO many people scared of spiders/mice/wetas and other things that are well shy of being able to grapple you to the ground and devour you???:confused:

[ManDownUnder]

ug i know.. same.. *shudders*

Poor little buggers - I actually quite like them, except the whitetails. Weta's too (no I'm not being a tough guy - you all know what a pussy I really am anyway), I just think they're so misunderstood, and do a lot of good work around the place

[Colapop]

Camel spiders do exist, but are relatively harmless. They're big f*ckers and run when given the chance. 99% of spiders do run when given the opportunity - how would you feel if someone our size (compariticely to them) came after ya?
People get freaked over the smallest things. I'm thankful they're not our size or us theirs - that would give me cause for concern.

[Cibby]

Weta's too ( around the place


UGH!!! Weta's are even worse... do you know what they do?? They get their bug ugly disguisting fang thingies and when they bite you they dont let go, they just sink into your flesh and hold on, the only way you can get them off is pull their fangs off and then extract their fangs from your skin or cut them out,...

yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk

ok so i may or may not be exagerating slightly but that is what i heard once.. not sure if it is true or not.

[Patrick]

from personal experience or from stories told...?

[Ixion]

No, it is pretty much true. One of them got Mrs Ixion a year or so ago. It was hiding in a bunch of flowers, and she put her hands in the bunch and started messing about with them (as women do), then started screaming.

When she pulled her hand out there was this honking horrible great weta stuck on it.

I tried to brush it off, but no way did it want to let go. Finally I smashed it off, but when it went it left its claw things (not fangs I don't think) embedded in her hand. I had to pull them (painfully) out. Bled quite a bit, and despite immediately soaking the hand in Dettol her hand swelled up something nasty overnight and she felt rather rotten. Swelling went down the next day.

Despite being smashed off, the bloody thing was still wriggling round on the floor, until it got my boot on its head.

She found the experience rather traumatic

I dislike wetas, one of the very few creatures where I do not have a "live, let live" policy. I smash 'em on sight.

[Coyote]

I dislike wetas, one of the very few creatures where I do not have a "live, let live" policy. I smash 'em on sight.
Why? Is this due to what you just explained or just cause you don't like them?

I for one wouldn't want a massive hand invading my home and then getting my head crushed for defending myself

[Sniper]

Fear of the unknown clouds so many judgements

[Colapop]

Best way to get them to let go is by holding a flame next to them (such as a lighter) Ya don't need to burn them, just close - they let go pretty darn quickly. And don't gimme any shit about leaping around the room - it's only pain.

[Ixion]

Just 'cos I don't like them.

Horrible things.

Completely unjustified , I'll grant you, for they are essentially harmless, Mrs Ixion's experience notwithstanding (She does not agree, but) .

In her case the swelling was probably due to dirt and crap on the claw things. But they cannot penetrate clothing to any extent.I once put my gumboot on, and something was scratching my foot. Pulled it out and a weta was clinging to my sock (I had shaken the boot, bugger must have been hanging on inside. Now I store them upside down Aussie style) . But he could not penetrate the thickness of the sock.

Just don't like 'em, never have. I invoke the right of the sword, as Lord of Creation , to smash them on sight. Bugger biodiversity, they can go and be biodiverse where I am not.

I read somewhere that there are three things that babies are atavistically afraid of, snakes, falling , and spider/weta/creepy crawly things.

Makes sense I suppose, if you think back to the days when we was apes, living in trees. Only nasties that could hurt an apeling baby would be falling out of the tree, and snakes and spiders that could sneak past Mummy and the ape guards.

EDIT: Don't mind spiders. Or even snakes, so long as I know they ain't poisonous.

EDITY EDIT: I ain't scared of wetas, I just dislike 'em.