Along Came A Spider

I was telling you the other day about the tadpoles, and I talked about how I'm waiting for them to turn into frogs/toads. I told about seeing millions of tiny toads hopping around on the trails a few years ago. These toads were only about the size of insects. I had to bend down and look very closely to identify them. Well guess what I saw on the trails in another park recently.

That's right! I saw tiny, almost microscopic, little creatures hopping all over the trail. I just knew I had discovered the toads again! I was extremely happy to see them once more, because the first time I was fascinated to see such tiny amphibians. I had no idea they could be this small.

So I bent over to get a closer look this time, and what did I see? Well if you haven't guessed by now, I'm going to tell you. It wasn't my beloved little toads, that's for sure. Instead of the toads, it was thousands of ugly, mean looking little spiders.

These spiders were jumping and hopping all over the trail. I had the greatest urge to run that I've had in a long time. I didn't want to stop for fear of them jumping all over me! Yuck! When I looked up from the closeup view of one of them, I could see these tiny little specks jumping everywhere.

I resisted that first urge of panic, but I still walked very quickly through that swarm of spiders. I have to tell you that the time slowed to a crawl for me. And I really mean crawl! Yuck! Ick! Uhh! When I got to a place where there weren't quite so many, I came all the way back to my senses and remembered what I was there for.

This was actually a perfect opportunity to get some pictures of something very unique. I mean, I've never seen anything like all of these spiders, so I guess most of you probably haven't either. While these spiders might be quite disgusting and more than a little scary, they are still very interesting.

Each of the pictures I'm showing you have different spiders in them. Each one of them is no bigger than this X. Maybe even smaller. I first saw them about three weeks ago. Then after it rained the amount was greatly reduced for awhile. Today they were covering the trail by the thousands again. Who wouldn't want to just have fun rolling around on the ground with these cuddly little rascals?

I tried to find out what type of spider these are, but I'm having no luck. I read a few places that talk about a type of small wolf spider, and there are a few others that look similar. I don't know. Creepy crawlies are all mostly the same to me. Something to be avoided!

Do you like spiders? Or do you want to run screaming from them? I've known people who keep spiders as pets. What if they got loose? I think even a snake might be better than this. What about you? What do you think?