Strength

I'm not sure exactly what the human equivalent of this would be in terms of relative size and weight, but I think it might be me holding up a sheep in my arms while biting chunks out of it. My alternative angle is less descriptive of the spider, but shows off her feat of strength to better advantage.

On the subject of chunks being bitten, I'm adding a second photo tonight, of a lacewing larva - most probably one of the Chrysoperla carnea group of green lacewings, because my garden is full of these at the moment. I was beating insects from one of the birch trees this afternoon, and when this one dropped out of the tree it missed my sweep net and landed on me instead. I only realised that this had happened when it bit me - a sensation that fell somewhere between a nettle sting and being pricked by a fine thorn. For a moment I doubted what was happening, but it continued to nip repeatedly with those pincer-like mandibles all through the time it took me to extract a bug pot from my pocket one-handed, remove the lid, and shake the little bugger beast off my hand into the pot.

The up side of all this was that I got to take the photo of a creature I've only ever seen once before. Adult lacewings tend to be secretive, feeding at night and resting under cover during the day, and their larvae, which are voracious predators of aphids and other small insects, disguise themselves from their own potential predators by amassing bits of the exoskeletons of their victims on their hairy backs. This has given rise to their common name of trash bugs.

Given that we weren't exactly friends, I didn't feel the need to try to return my trashy subject to the birch tree when I'd finished with it, but I did pop it onto a frond of the Lawson cypress, where I'm sure it will be able to find many more appropriate things to eat than me.