What could be worse than snakes on a plane?

A loose spider on a space station.

Technorati Tags: humor, 'snakes, on, a, plane', spider, spiders, 'space, station'

Apparently the missing orb-weaver spider is gone from it's cage and can't be found anywhere.

And for the record, I don't know what kind of spider is in my photograph. It's a spider that lives in Fairbanks, AK.

From the Telegraph:

It was hoped the missing spider might have sought refuge in its neighbour's tank, but the remaining spider has spun a web so thick, to cope with the zero-gravity conditions, that is is impossible to check.

The runaway spider, which was meant to be the back-up should the chief spider be incapacitated for any reason [emphasis mine], was reported AWOL after Endeavour's crew opened a cargo container of equipment including a new kitchen and toilet, additional living quarters for the station's staff and a $250 million machine that will allow future crews to recycle their urine for drinking water.

Maybe someone swallowed the spider to catch the fly? I don't know why they'd swallow a fly.

H/T Ed Yong (who has also published a wonderful new book BTW)