come up here
right away.
I can be there tomorrow afternoon.
But Collins, try and find me a specimen.
Did you bring the keys?
Great.
Perk up, Lloyd.
If we find the spider that did this,
you can arrest him.
Milt, why don't you cover the living room?
Chris, why don't you check out back?
Lloyd, take the kitchen.
And I'll just... I'll oversee the...
I'll just coordinate the...
I'll just stay right here.
What is all that crap?
Leftovers.
Mostly cricket parts, wings, legs.
We haven't heard any crickets in Canaima
these past few weeks.
Ross, here!
Don't move!
- It's dead. Shit!
- What could have killed it?
The shock of seeing Lloyd?
There are other people in this house.
Dad, go away!
Use the one down here!
Never a moment's peace.
What happened? Are you all right?
Why don't we just take the dead spider
and get out of here?
You don't get off that easy. It's already
desiccated. It wouldn't be any use to us.
You mean macerated.
No, I mean desiccated.
Dried up, drained of all its blood.
Macerated is the... chewing that they do.
They're like little vampires.
This trip of Atherton's to find
the spider species, where'd he go?
South America.
Venezuela, why?
Is that one of them?
I'd say it's a damn fine suspect.
Ross, you're going to have
to take a step towards it.
- Chris, I'm scared to death.
- We all are.
But our brains secrete a neurotransmitter
that enables us to deal with them.
I don't think I have
that particular neurotransmitter.
Yes, you do.
You need an asbestos glove.
Doomsday weapon in Delbert's war
on a creepy crawler.
I coat it with Demon EC,
insecticide with environmental conscience.
It's biodegradable. Organic.
You ought to see the little beasties twitch
when they get a whiff of this stuff.
Now, Delbert...
There's a rumour going around that
some kind of spider killed Sam Metcalf.
Maybe Margaret, maybe even my Bronco.
Doubtful, Henry.
In a case in Florida one of my colleagues
bumped into a nest of black widows.
Sustained over a dozen bites and lived.
Of course, he probably lost control
of all of his bodily functions.
There's no spider here.
But I will hunt down the alleged arachnid
and spritz him to kingdom come.
Yeah, that's right.
I'm bad.
Dr Atherton, Ross Jennings.
Come in.
Did you find me another specimen?
Yes, I did.
I also paid a call to the town mortician.
Several months ago, there was a corpse.
The body was desiccated,
it was totally drained of blood.
Irv agreed that
if the spider was big enough
and it spent a long enough time
working on that body...
I think I know
why you've heard of Canaima.
This was Jerry Manley's home town.
- Manley the photographer?
- Yeah.
I think one of your Venezuelan spiders
hitched a ride here in Manley's coffin.
The fangs, the injectors,
are disproportionately large.
Three poison sacs.
Now, let's test the venom.
The nature of the toxin and the amount
injected determine the effect of the bite.
And, of course, the place
where the subject is bitten.
It can lead to paralysis or death.
I'm no expert, but I'd guess this toxin
is fatal at a fraction of that dose.
I'd agree.
No sex organs.
That would make them drones.
Or soldiers.
That's typically seen in highly organised
insect societies-bees, ants -
but we've never seen it in spiders.
- I have.
- Venezuela, right?
Right. This is the descendant.
Somehow that South American male
has mated with a domestic house spider
and created a very deadly strain.
But if it has no sex organs,
it can't reproduce, right?
True, and the accelerated growth rate,
combined with the specialisation,
suggests a short life cycle.
We've already seen a dead one.
- That could be the good news.
- Now let's discuss the bad.
In their own ecosystem,
the species I discovered in South America
live at the top of the food chain.
The spread out from a central nest in a
web-like pattern and dominate the area.
But in their original habitat, geography