Flying Spiders!!!!!!!!

reply to post by just_julie


Australia, the big island, I wish I could live there. I live in San Antonio,
Texas, USA, and it is basically devoid of interesting life forms, people
included.

When I was a child of about eight years old, I visted relatives, in a rural
area outside San Antonio. I was in a back yard, when this horrible looking
flying creature, almost hit me in the face. It was about two and a half
inches long, with wings that looked like they belonged to a cicada,
transparent but with veins. I became very terrified, but I couldn't move
due to the fear! I noticed that the thing had huge spider fangs, that it
opened and closed, and eight furry legs, on a furry body. What the
heck is that thing? I was witnessing a giant flying spider! I had never
seen anything like it! It kept circling around me. I heard the loud buzzing
of it's wings when it got close. I felt spider thread on my face and arms,
that I quickly and frantically tried to remove, only to be hit with more
thread when it circled me. If that thing landed on me, I felt it would attach
itself painfully and permanently to my neck and suck my blood and inject
it eggs, which would pop out of my dead body as larvae, to continue it's
life cycle. I ran indoors. I gathered courage after some time, and looked
out the screen door, to see what it was. It was gone. I did not step out
into that backyard again. I never saw it again.

I did not develop a phobia, instead I became fascinated with bugs,
especially spiders. I became a spider collector, collecting up to 100
different species of tarantulas, from around the world. I became friends
with a spider dealer, who sold, kept and collected thousands and
thousands of spiders, mainly turantulas.

In the years to come I researched encyclopedias and library books, trying
to determine what it was that I witnessed that day. I never could come up
with such a creature. The only place that I thought it could be found, was
the Bible, as one of the plague bugs that will attack us during the
Apocalypse. It was that horrible looking.

The only other thing that it could have been, was a Pepsis sp. tarantula
hawk, a large tarantula eating wasp, that was able to fly with a tarantula
that it had in it's grasp, and that I mistook for a flying spider. I guess I'll
never know for sure, or do these things exist?