Friday, April 22, 2016

S is for . . .

Image source: Pieter Von Marion


Spiders.

Do you suffer from arachnophobia? Then you may be female, as 50% of women claim this fear, while only 16% of men will admit to it.

Spiders make me nervous if the creepy-crawly in question is big enough and surprises me. But I also know they eat other insects, so I don't like to squish them dead. I will catch them and put them out of the house instead. (Hey, I'm a poet and didn't know it.) Yet this altruistic bit on my part is not so helpful. Most spiders you find inside are adapted to living there. (Source)

Here's a few other tidbits you might not know about spiders:

1. There are 40,000 different types of known spiders. So how many are left to be discovered? Same number.

2. Tensile strength is the greatest stress a material can take before breaking. A spider's silk has a tensile strength greater than bone and half the strength of steel.

3. The bite of the Brazilian Wandering Spider can cause long and painful erections in guys. (Insert your own joke here.)

4. The Goliath Birdeater can weigh up to 6 ounces.

(Material adapted from Live Sciences's 10 Things You Didn't Know About Spiders

Image Source: Aiden


Have you seen any spider movies? I remember seeing Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo and Arachnophobia when I was a kid. Or is Charlotte's Web more to your liking?

And as an extra bonus, blogger and author Chrys Fey is releasing her first novel, Seismic Crimes!





An Internal Affairs Investigator was murdered and his brother, Donovan Goldwyn, was framed. Now Donovan is desperate to prove his innocence. And the one person who can do that is the woman who saved him from a deadly hurricane—Beth Kennedy. From the moment their fates intertwined, passion consumed him. He wants her in his arms. More, he wants her by his side in his darkest moments.

Beth Kennedy may not know everything about Donovan, but she can’t deny what she feels for him. It’s her love for him that pushes her to do whatever she has to do to help him get justice, including putting herself in a criminal’s crosshairs.

When a tip reveals the killer's location, they travel to California, but then an earthquake of catastrophic proportions separates them. As aftershocks roll the land, Beth and Donovan have to endure dangerous conditions while trying to find their way back to one another. Will they reunite and find the killer, or will they lose everything?

DIGITAL LINKS:


ALSO AVAILABLE IN PRINT!


19 comments:

  1. Ok, spiders are icky and creepy so I've never seen any movie in which they're big and awful. Charlotte's Web, however, was a childhood favorite. Apparently if you make the spider a cute sidekick, I have no prob with it!

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  2. Interesting blog. And very true 50% women.... Well I should not say that.
    Here links to the two Genre I am entering with in A to Z challenge . Do visit and reflect

    Festivals of India - Simhastha 2016 - http://facetsofadishortstories.blogspot.in/2016/04/s-for-simhastha-or-ujjain-simhastha.html
    Poetry - Quiver http://facetsofadienglish.blogspot.in/2016/04/q-for-quiver.html

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  3. Thank you so much for including my promo! And of course it had to be with spiders. I'm not actually afraid of them, but Donovan in my book doesn't like them much. lol

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  4. I love the artistry of spider webs. I find them a lot on my back porch and I always wish there was a way to preserve them. Thwy are so beautiful. Spiders, on the other hand, are kind of scary.

    @Kathleen01930
    Meet My Imaginary Friends
    #AtoZchallenge

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    Replies
    1. Agreed on the webs! Pretty amazing to watch the spiders at work, too.

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  5. Interesting facts about spiders. I am not terrified of them, but I get the creeps if I think of one crawling on me.

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  6. We are happy to let spiders roam about our house, living where we do in the country we get all sorts of flying critters in the house. So the spiders do what spiders do. Sort of nature in the raw in the middle of the living room.

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  7. I have nothing against spiders. In fact, I always help them to go back outside. I don't like killing them. What I didn't know was the strength of a spider's silk.

    Visiting from the A to Z Blog Challenge.

    Shalom,
    Patricia @ EverythingMustChange

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  8. Another great post. Did you find anything on the effects of radioactive spider bites, by any chance? I got one the other day and have been feeling kind of weird...

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  9. I don't think I actually have arachnophobia but I do not like spiders at all. I don't feel bad about killing any that are inside my apartment, that is, if I can work up the courage to get close enough!

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  10. Spiders creep me out a little, but I don't freak out. In fact, at the day job, my coworkers came to me to take care of the spiders. If I could, I'd put them outside. Although, sometimes I worried they'd touch me so I'd squish them.

    ~Ninja Minion Patricia Lynne aka Patricia Josephine~
    Story Dam
    Patricia Lynne, Indie Author

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  11. I think men are just as afraid of spiders...they just don't admit it!

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  12. I'm not wild about spiders, but I can deal with them easier that snakes.
    Congrats to Chrys.

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  13. All I can say about spiders is ick, ick, ick! But, congrats to Chrys!

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  14. Okay, yes, I'm highly frightened by spiders, irritatingly so. Not my fault! My brother used to chase me with damn things. He was mean! LOL I can scream with a sound like you've never heard, but damn my whole body reacts to the little monsters! :)
    Congrats Chrys, you are everywhere this S day!

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  15. I can't deal with spiders - if they keep to themselves and do their thing, that's fine, but if they come near me I scream for my husband to take them away :).
    Tasha
    Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)

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  16. I'm sorry. I saw the word spider and just scrolled to the bottom of the page. I hope I didn't miss anything important. :)

    Yeah, Chrys!

    Heather

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