Heh. I saw this story in the local fishwrapper yesterday. Nature at work.
It's a big spider but the pictures make it look bigger than what it really is.
The spider is, I believe a member of the golden orb family and they can get quite big. I had one for a while that lived on my back deck, it wasn't in the road of anything and I ain't afraid of no bug, so I let it stay until it was eaten by a bigger bird.
The shot didn't come out quite as intended but the legs are about 3" long from tip to body. It lived on a diet of large insects and ghekos. One could catch live cockroaches and throw them onto the web for drunken entertainment.
I don't think their bite would be *lethal* unless you developed an allergic reaction. That's not to say it wouldn't hurt like a sumbitch at the time. When I was a quite young, and the family was outdoors, I chose to wander over and take a peek at a disused building. Well, on the way out I walked face first into one of these webs. Of course as their web is remarkable strong and sticky , the whole thing , spider and all detached from the building and was being dragged along behind me as I tried to flee. Looking back on it I can see what the adults found funny, but *I* sure didn't see anything to laugh about at the time.
The Bird is a finch, about the size of a mouse. I have a cloud of em that eat from my feeder.
I'd note in closing that we have most of the worlds deadliest bugs and snakes up here. It's really less of a problem than most people would make out. At least we don't have bears. *shudder*
