Oct06- The other day we were moving brush and making some temporary repairs to a fence around one of the gardens, and Jamie-girl spotted a rain spider crawling along one of the gum tree branches. From leg-tip to leg-tip, this thing was around 8-10cm long, and the only spiders I’ve ever seen bigger were the tarantulas in Arizona. The good news is, it didn’t bite Jamie-girl. The somewhat bad news is, we’ll likely see these things quite often. Our little plant/animal guide to Swaziland says they’re common, widespread, and have “mild venom.” The word “mild” there is really overshadowed by that other word, you know? So I guess from now on we’ll exercise “mild caution” when handling brush.
Coincidentally, I had just been thumbing through the spider section of that book the night before seeing the rain spider (which is the only reason I could identify it), and its description caught my eye not because of the “mild venom” comment but because of two other words: “enter houses.” That’s the last thing I wanted to read; if something’s gonna be big and creepy and venomous, let it stay outdoors-- the last thing I want it to do is “enter houses.” And reading through the rest of the book’s section on local invertebrates further convinced me to step up my efforts (which had already begun) to seal up any little holes and cracks in the walls. We found some ants on the floor a few days back and that launched an effort to find and block their thoroughfares. While doing this I happened upon a modest-sized black spider in the corner behind our food shelving, and as it managed to elude the little wad of toilet paper which I so bravely wielded, it occurred to me (for the thousandth time now) that I’m in Africa—which meant that this was some kind of African spider I was pitting myself against, and perhaps I was outmatched.
It seems to me, if you want to make scarier an animal already kind of scary to begin with, add the locative description of “African” to its name. Example: bees can be kind of dangerous, I guess, but what about Africanized bees? Downright frightening. Or scorpions—they already carry a fair amount of dread with their name, but consider to us North Americans how much more dreadful an African scorpion sounds. Which would you rather face on a dark night with nothing but a flashlight and a flip-flop: a North American scorpion or an African scorpion? Before you answer (and saying “neither” doesn’t count), consider the following description of the (African) buthid scorpion, excerpted from my guidebook: “runs fast with tail straight out, stings readily.” And yes, they too are “widespread.” Or consider the very next entry on my book’s page, the (African) liochelid , a “medium-sized” scorpion whose length—this must be a typo, please let this be a typo—ranges from “9 to 10 cm”. That’s like 3-4 inches, my fellow (metrically-challenged) Americans, And yes, of course it’s widespread—they’re all widespread.
I won’t even get into details on the snake section of our book, other than to say that it lists no less than 19 snakes common to our specific region/climate (so-called “montane grasslands”), 5 of which have a red skull-and-crossbones symbol next to its picture.
So anyway, back in the kitchen… the sudden awareness that I was dealing with an African spider got me thinking that perhaps it could be a more formidable foe than the North American varieties (of which, to be sure, there are downright nasty ones—black widows, brown recluse, Charlotte…). So I did what any sensible young (African) warrior would do: I got myself a bigger wad of toilet paper. And after I killed it I cracked open our Swaziland plants/animals guidebook to see if it was pictured. It wasn’t. But that rain spider was, and so was the sun spider (“medium-sized hairy spider-like creature [huh?] with enormous jaws but lacking venom”}, the banded-legged golden orb spider (“widespread, large spider…mild venom”), the golden-brown baboon spider (“widespread, large robust hairy spider… venom not dangerous to man”) and a few other excellent eight-legged reasons to seal up those cracks and always carry the flashlight to the outhouse after dark.
If you’ve read this far, you probably need a palette-cleansing image to counteract all the unnerving, creepy, itch-inducing descriptions to which I just subjected you. So here’s one, sticking with the African-as-descriptor animal theme: the striking African monarch butterfly, of which our book describes as “widespread, large-winged and brightly colored… flies all year.” They look just like the monarchs back home, except bigger. Picturing it? Feel better now? But wait— here’s my favorite detail about those pretty butterflies: “distasteful to birds because of poisonous chemicals stored in its body.” How cool is that? So, note to self: enjoy looking at the African Monarchs, but try to resist the temptation to pop them in my mouth.
The spiders, on the other hand, are apparently quite edible, and taste like (what else?) chicken.
Coincidentally, I had just been thumbing through the spider section of that book the night before seeing the rain spider (which is the only reason I could identify it), and its description caught my eye not because of the “mild venom” comment but because of two other words: “enter houses.” That’s the last thing I wanted to read; if something’s gonna be big and creepy and venomous, let it stay outdoors-- the last thing I want it to do is “enter houses.” And reading through the rest of the book’s section on local invertebrates further convinced me to step up my efforts (which had already begun) to seal up any little holes and cracks in the walls. We found some ants on the floor a few days back and that launched an effort to find and block their thoroughfares. While doing this I happened upon a modest-sized black spider in the corner behind our food shelving, and as it managed to elude the little wad of toilet paper which I so bravely wielded, it occurred to me (for the thousandth time now) that I’m in Africa—which meant that this was some kind of African spider I was pitting myself against, and perhaps I was outmatched.
It seems to me, if you want to make scarier an animal already kind of scary to begin with, add the locative description of “African” to its name. Example: bees can be kind of dangerous, I guess, but what about Africanized bees? Downright frightening. Or scorpions—they already carry a fair amount of dread with their name, but consider to us North Americans how much more dreadful an African scorpion sounds. Which would you rather face on a dark night with nothing but a flashlight and a flip-flop: a North American scorpion or an African scorpion? Before you answer (and saying “neither” doesn’t count), consider the following description of the (African) buthid scorpion, excerpted from my guidebook: “runs fast with tail straight out, stings readily.” And yes, they too are “widespread.” Or consider the very next entry on my book’s page, the (African) liochelid , a “medium-sized” scorpion whose length—this must be a typo, please let this be a typo—ranges from “9 to 10 cm”. That’s like 3-4 inches, my fellow (metrically-challenged) Americans, And yes, of course it’s widespread—they’re all widespread.
I won’t even get into details on the snake section of our book, other than to say that it lists no less than 19 snakes common to our specific region/climate (so-called “montane grasslands”), 5 of which have a red skull-and-crossbones symbol next to its picture.
So anyway, back in the kitchen… the sudden awareness that I was dealing with an African spider got me thinking that perhaps it could be a more formidable foe than the North American varieties (of which, to be sure, there are downright nasty ones—black widows, brown recluse, Charlotte…). So I did what any sensible young (African) warrior would do: I got myself a bigger wad of toilet paper. And after I killed it I cracked open our Swaziland plants/animals guidebook to see if it was pictured. It wasn’t. But that rain spider was, and so was the sun spider (“medium-sized hairy spider-like creature [huh?] with enormous jaws but lacking venom”}, the banded-legged golden orb spider (“widespread, large spider…mild venom”), the golden-brown baboon spider (“widespread, large robust hairy spider… venom not dangerous to man”) and a few other excellent eight-legged reasons to seal up those cracks and always carry the flashlight to the outhouse after dark.
If you’ve read this far, you probably need a palette-cleansing image to counteract all the unnerving, creepy, itch-inducing descriptions to which I just subjected you. So here’s one, sticking with the African-as-descriptor animal theme: the striking African monarch butterfly, of which our book describes as “widespread, large-winged and brightly colored… flies all year.” They look just like the monarchs back home, except bigger. Picturing it? Feel better now? But wait— here’s my favorite detail about those pretty butterflies: “distasteful to birds because of poisonous chemicals stored in its body.” How cool is that? So, note to self: enjoy looking at the African Monarchs, but try to resist the temptation to pop them in my mouth.
The spiders, on the other hand, are apparently quite edible, and taste like (what else?) chicken.
2 comments:
African chicken?
By the way I fully agree with this post. That's why I'm called the African Gregory.
Regarding Greg's comment, did you hear that we now have proof that Greg is actually not black? That's right, little Etienne is white as snow.
He-J, I can sense that you've been laying awake at night thinking about the potential creepy-crawlers. I can relate somewhat based on our first living situation (in the haunted house where we were robbed) in Costa Rica. But your point is well taken. A Central American rat has nothing on an African rat.
By the way, I just posted the answer to your "little mister" question that you wrote about several months ago. Don't miss it.
xoxo,
Lekha
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