Gavin wrote: >Let's say you were a common garden ant and you were trying desperately >to avoid the web of a black widow spider--or any other large voracious >spider. Which in relation to your size roughly approximates that of a >human to a semi-trucktrailer. It's capable of catching you in what to an >ant is a trap not unlike a web of super flexible steel cable covered >with super glue, then jamming its saber like fangs in you, injecting you >with neurotoxin. This dissolving your insides which it sucks out leaving >nothing but your hollow husk, your exoskeleton, along with those of its >other victims dangling in its web. > >So how would you perceive this being, Leon? And that's just one hazard, >one dragon that populates an ant's world. But Gavin, why does Pound call black widow spiders dragons? I did in fact speculate that perhaps he meant that ants were small relative to cows and such like, but that seems a small yield. And are you quite sure that ants are the usual prey of black widow spiders?