Arachnophobia

Welcome.

Dr Atherton, I presume.

- Wait a minute, not so fast.

- We're in a hurry, Mr Manley.

Leave your personal things. Just bring

your equipment. We depart immediately.

Miguel Higueras, our field assistant.

Sorry I'm late. I've been held up in

Caracas for a while with a fever.

Tell the truth, I'm not over it yet.

Be sick on your own time, Mr Manley.

I want close-ups of every specimen

and coverage of the surrounding

rain forests and tepuis.

The what?

Tepui. It's an Indian

word for mountain.

A place where species have survived

in isolation for millions of years.

Any man-eating dinosaurs?

Atherton, you're in luck.

We're hitting a brand-new one today.

Great. Anybody ever get lost?

Legend says men who climb

to the rain desert never return,

but don't worry, we small-game hunters

don't climb, we fly!

He friendly?

I hope so. He's our guide.

Stick close.

Twenty-four hour ant.

They bite?

They kill, Mr Manley,

in sufficient numbers.

So do some of the frogs.

Don't touch any.

Great.

This is where we're going.

We land here, then walk down here.

This is a sinkhole.

A place where thousands of years

of streaming water

have torn away the rock.

It's very deep. 2,000 feet.

And dark at the bottom.

We'll need flash equipment.

Stegolepis.

Edible and nutritious enough

to survive on for weeks.

Thanks, I'll pass.

Plants your specialty?

Insects and spiders

and identifying new ones.

Great. Just what the world needs.

More bugs.

What's your speciality, Manley?

Football.

Let's forget the fact that

no one mentioned poison ants and frogs,

but a 2,000-foot drop? Come on!

This is for the equipment.

Our guide will show us another way down.

What's with him?

This is as far as he'll go.

What?

It's amazing.

The air temp's dropped 10 degrees

in the last 100 meters.

Not far.

Down there.

- You all right?

- Yeah.

I'm fine, I just...

What'd he say?

He says you should be careful.

You're too big for us to carry out.

Wait up!

What does that thing do, anyway?

Did you ever throw a large firecracker

into a pond?

Maybe when I was a kid. Why?

What happened?

All sorts of stuff floated to the surface.

Exactly.

Everybody ready?

Prepare yourselves, gentlemen.

For what?

For pictures, Manley, pictures.

What is it?

I think it's a new species of butterfly.

We could call it... photius manlii.

Extraordinary.

Look at these markings.

Don't just sit there.

Are you sure it's dead?

Yes, quite dead.

Two more.

This is highly unusual.

So many spiders this size

in such a confined area.

Look at the shape of the abdomen.

We must try to find a live specimen.

- What do you think you're doing?

- It was alive.

Don't be ridiculous.

It's just a spider. What's the big deal?

It isn't just a spider.

It was potentially a new species of spider.

Isolated and unchanged

for millions of years.

And all you could do is squash it.

That's impossible. They should be dead.

Very aggressive.

We'll take two back alive and preserve two.

Are you sure that'll do it?

This stuff will kill an elephant.

Millions of years, then we come along.

How long's it gonna take us

to get back to camp?

What's the matter?

You still worried about dinosaurs?

This place just gives me the creeps.

Incredible.

What is?

These spiders have

no reproductive organs.

Almost like worker bees or soldier ants.

Yeah, well, if these are the soldiers,

I'd hate to see the general.

How are you feeling?

Like hell. This fever's killing me.

You don't look so good. Take a rest.

The fever.

Make sure we've got

all his film, Higueras.

Have we notified his family?

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