For those of you just arriving to the net in the last year or two this appears
to be a prime example of a Net Myth. Now if Monty has any facts to actually
back it up BUT since the motto of my state is "Show Me" I'll wait until I see
some factual proof. They always sound so official but you can usually find
several things that don't sound right with the story.
1) when is the last time that you heard of someone "legally" pulling a rare
cactus out of the southwest desert. Most of the time they are smuggled. So
your customs people won't be alerted?
2) You like to quarantine things in Oz & probably for good reason but 8 months,
I sincerely doubt it.
3) When is the last time that you saw a cactus go from one meter to two meters
in less that 5-6 years? Many are a lot longer than that.
4) Anybody know of any other spider that is released at full adult size - no
way, they all start off small and "grow into it". Especially something that
relies on eating other insects. What they've been eating cactus for all that
time?
Maybe this is the work of someone who wanted to show us all why quarantines are
so necessary or why you should never bring anything back to Oz.
Perhaps the "Desert Mack" would care to comment?
gary lange
----------
> From: Monty Newman <monty at effect.net.au>
> To: Rainbowfish Mailing List <rainbowfish at pcug.org.au>
> Subject: [RML] Why we have AQIS (Australian Quarantine Inspection Service) -
creepy spam
> Date: Sunday, November 29, 1998 5:22 PM
>
>
> This bloke and his family were on holiday in the States and went to Mexico
> for a week.
> As he is an avid cactus fan he bought a rare and expensive cactus there, it
> was about a metre high
<snip>
> it must stay
> in quarantine for 3 months,
<snip>
over time it grew to about 2 metres or so in height.
<snip>
see the plant shiver all over, he gave it another light spray and
<snip>
> The story was that this type of spider lays eggs in this type
> of cactus and they hatch and live in it as it and they grow to full size.
> When they are all grown to full size they release themselves, the cactus
> just explodes and about 150 of these plate size tiger striped hairy spiders
<snip>
Hey if you believe this one tsuh yang has a bridge in Brooklyn that he wants to
sell you, real cheap too, gets lots and lots of traffic, you'll make
millions.... and I'm sure Bjorn and the other swamp boys can supply you with
some wonderful land that is above water at least part of the year... :-)