Scary Spider Stories - Hokulele may not want to participate

[Skeptic Guy]

For an obvious reason, this picture was posted in the Forum Birdwatcher thread and started a bit of a derail, pretty much consisting of posts that started with "Holly crap, that's a big spider!".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/graphics/2008/10/22/easpider122.jpg

However, it was pointed out that it was a derail but I found the subject very interesting. I like spiders and the big ones (see above) are particularly intriguing.

I remember when I lived in Singapore being chased by a very large one that I tried to kill by turning on the oven's broiler in which he was trying to hide. He did not find it amusing and proceeded to chase me across the kitchen. I kid you not.

Anyway, do you know of any cool spiders or have any interesting spider stories? It's Halloween and this kind of thing seems topical.

Oh, and Hokulele let us know that she was not so keen on spiders so let's not tell her abou this thread, shall we?

[Ashles]

That had better be a really small bird or PhotoShop or I'm going to cry.

[fuelair]

For an obvious reason, this picture was posted in the Forum Birdwatcher thread and started a bit of a derail, pretty much consisting of posts that started with "Holly crap, that's a big spider!".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/graphics/2008/10/22/easpider122.jpg

However, it was pointed out that it was a derail but I found the subject very interesting. I like spiders and the big ones (see above) are particularly intriguing.

I remember when I lived in Singapore being chased by a very large one that I tried to kill by turning on the oven's broiler in which he was trying to hide. He did not find it amusing and proceeded to chase me across the kitchen. I kid you not.

? A good throwing weapon is worth it's cost.

[Skeptic Guy]

That had better be a really small bird or PhotoShop or I'm going to cry.

In the original thread I thought it was photoshopped too. It isn't. Here, take one of my Kleenexes.

A good throwing weapon is worth it's cost.

I believe I eventually dispatched him with a broom, but only after he played possum after the first time I hit him and he jumped back up. I tried to google South East Asia spiders and the closest thing I could find that looked like him was a Huntsman spider. It could have been.

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:qgf9guIWUh_mjM:http://members.iinet.net.au/~pterren/Spider_Dads_hand.JPG (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://members.iinet.net.au/~pterren/Spider_Dads_hand.JPG&imgrefurl=http://members.iinet.net.au/~pterren/aboutme.htm&h=768&w=1024&sz=72&hl=en&start=7&um=1&usg=__muU4G1pbj7NIYbaOq49cTcKfp1E=&tbnid=qgf9guIWUh_mjM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHuntsman%2Bspider%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den% 26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us%26sa%3DN)

[sleeplessdwarf]

I have always been known to like strange pets and a Tarantula was one of my all time favorites. The best story I have goes back to my ex wife. I kept the spider in a 50 gal fish tank and one day I forgot to close the lid after feeding him a small mouse. We went out for a bit and when we returned he was out of the cage. My wife freaked out and did not even want to sleep. I found him later that night, but I did not mention it to her, meanwhile I took his latest shed skin which was in perfect condition, and carefully placed it on the large plant next to our bed. Needless to describe, the wife completely lost it when she went to turn off the lamp right next to the plant. It was priceless, although I didnt get lucky anytime soon. :D Later in the week I was able to do the same to my mother. I sure do miss my old friend.

[X]

Egad! Martha, get the tennis racket! The fly swatter ain't gonna cut it!




On a more serious note, what kind of spider is that?

[Skeptic Guy]

I have always been known to like strange pets and a Tarantula was one of my all time favorites. The best story I have goes back to my ex wife. I kept the spider in a 50 gal fish tank and one day I forgot to close the lid after feeding him a small mouse. We went out for a bit and when we returned he was out of the cage. My wife freaked out and did not even want to sleep. I found him later that night, but I did not mention it to her, meanwhile I took his latest shed skin which was in perfect condition, and carefully placed it on the large plant next to our bed. Needless to describe, the wife completely lost it when she went to turn off the lamp right next to the plant. It was priceless, although I didnt get lucky anytime soon. :D Later in the week I was able to do the same to my mother. I sure do miss my old friend.

Ex-wife, you say? :D

;4157516']Egad! Martha, get the tennis racket! The fly swatter ain't gonna cut it!



On a more serious note, what kind of spider is that?

A Golden Orb Spider!

[kbm99]

Sure.

Many years ago (too damn many, frankly) when I was a wee lad living in west Texas, my church was involved in some sort of "adopt a highway" type program. Once a week church members would take turns policing up a lonely stretch of roadway, pick up litter, etc.

One hot-ass summer day my father & I were taking a turn at this, and we stopped at the world's least inviting road-side picnic area (west Texas is really dreadful, honestly) to collect the bags from the trash cans. The cans were big 55-gallon drum affairs with heavy metal dome tops on them. I took the top off the first one, and reached inside to gather up the top of the plastic liner - and nearly grabbed the double-silver-dollar sized black widow spider that had built her web across the top of the can. She was suspended int he middle of it, red-hourglass-belly-side-up. The palm of my hand was inches from grabbing her when I stopped. What followed was a case of the heebie-jeebies unlike any other.

Up until then I had no issue with spiders, but to this day I will kill any damn spider I find in the house as soon as I see it, and should one of the blasted demon things actually *touch my skin* -- yowch. You'll believe a man can fly.

[Hokulele]

Skeptic Guy is officially on The ListTM

[Ashles]

It was priceless, although I didnt get lucky anytime soon. :D Later in the week I was able to do the same to my mother.
That just sounds slightly odd.

[Skeptic Guy]

Sure.

Many years ago (too damn many, frankly) when I was a wee lad living in west Texas, my church was involved in some sort of "adopt a highway" type program. Once a week church members would take turns policing up a lonely stretch of roadway, pick up litter, etc.

One hot-ass summer day my father & I were taking a turn at this, and we stopped at the world's least inviting road-side picnic area (west Texas is really dreadful, honestly) to collect the bags from the trash cans. The cans were big 55-gallon drum affairs with heavy metal dome tops on them. I took the top off the first one, and reached inside to gather up the top of the plastic liner - and nearly grabbed the double-silver-dollar sized black widow spider that had built her web across the top of the can. She was suspended int he middle of it, red-hourglass-belly-side-up. The palm of my hand was inches from grabbing her when I stopped. What followed was a case of the heebie-jeebies unlike any other.

Up until then I had no issue with spiders, but to this day I will kill any damn spider I find in the house as soon as I see it, and should one of the blasted demon things actually *touch my skin* -- yowch. You'll believe a man can fly.

I used to live in Elpaso. I know of what you speak. When I lived in LA, I did regular weekly audits of my backyard and shed to hunt down and "remove" Black Widow spiders.

Skeptic Guy is officially on The ListTM

:boxedin: The few, the proud...and frankly, the brave.

[X]

Skeptic Guy is officially on The ListTM


You had fair warning.



Skeptic Guy: Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_silk_orb-weaver) is the correct Wikipedia link.
I had to do some hunting to find it, but the "Golden Orb SPider" lead you gave at least made that part easy.
So thank you.



According to this (http://www.learningspark.com.au/shop/nt/gospider/index.html) site, they can get pretty darned big.
5 centimeter bodies, with a 20 centimeter leg span.

(Which someone may want to add to the Wikipedia article)


Kind of pretty, as far as spiders go.

[paximperium]

Spiders get a bad web...I mean rep.

[dudalb]

"There Is A Spider In There The Size Of A Buick!".
Woody Allen, "Annie Hall".

[Cainkane1]

I was exploring an old smokehouse and after I left I felt something crawling on the back of my neck. I brushed it off and it was a black widow. I was 7 or 8 at the time.

[Jeff Corey]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061027-tarantula-video.html

[Skeptic Guy]

;4157583']You had fair warning.



Skeptic Guy: Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_silk_orb-weaver) is the correct Wikipedia link.
I had to do some hunting to find it, but the "Golden Orb SPider" lead you gave at least made that part easy.
So thank you.



According to this (http://www.learningspark.com.au/shop/nt/gospider/index.html) site, they can get pretty darned big.
5 centimeter bodies, with a 20 centimeter leg span.

(Which someone may want to add to the Wikipedia article)


Kind of pretty, as far as spiders go.

Ah, I'm sorry [X], I thought I had it right. I know I had that same page up earier, it seems I re-wrote it incorrectly.

Hokulele is more bark than (spider) bite. Shhh, we need to keep it down or she'll hear and come and beat my...

[a_unique_person]

In the original thread I thought it was photoshopped too. It isn't. Here, take one of my Kleenexes.



I believe I eventually dispatched him with a broom, but only after he played possum after the first time I hit him and he jumped back up. I tried to google South East Asia spiders and the closest thing I could find that looked like him was a Huntsman spider. It could have been.

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:qgf9guIWUh_mjM:http://members.iinet.net.au/~pterren/Spider_Dads_hand.JPG (http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:qgf9guIWUh_mjM:http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Epterren/Spider_Dads_hand.JPG)

Looks like a huntsman. They are interesting spiders, since they are named appropriated, they actively hunt their prey, they don't rely on a web. I watched one hunting the insects caught between the fly wire screen and the window once. He was very fast, and having quite a feast.

Once a walked around the side of the house, and brushed past a tree. A huntsman landed on my head or shoulder, and I had to brush it off. They can give a nasty bite, apparently, but don't tend to attack humans.

[NobbyNobbs]

I have always been known to like strange pets and a Tarantula was one of my all time favorites. The best story I have goes back to my ex wife. I kept the spider in a 50 gal fish tank and one day I forgot to close the lid after feeding him a small mouse. We went out for a bit and when we returned he was out of the cage. My wife freaked out and did not even want to sleep. I found him later that night, but I did not mention it to her, meanwhile I took his latest shed skin which was in perfect condition, and carefully placed it on the large plant next to our bed. Needless to describe, the wife completely lost it when she went to turn off the lamp right next to the plant. It was priceless, although I didnt get lucky anytime soon. :D Later in the week I was able to do the same to my mother. I sure do miss my old friend.


About once every year or so I get it into my head that a tarantula would make a cool pet. I go to the pet store, look at the spiders, get the heebie-jeebies, the shivers, and the creeps, then go and buy another goldfish and go home.

[Mister Scoville]

With reference to post #4, back in the 80's I was living in a student share house in Brisbane. The house was a Queenslander-style place, so it had wooden v-joint walls. Anyway, one bedtime I spotted a long grey hairy spider leg poking out of a spot where the wall meet the roof - right above my pillow. Clearly this was not a tenable situation, so quite a lot of insecticide was pumped into it, whereupon it started descending on a thread towards the bed. After a brief panic when I tore all the bedding off the bed it hit the base, flipped over and curled up. Now, I was going to scoop it onto a bit of paper and chuck it out a window, but some strange sense of self-preservation kicked in and I gave it a poke with a wood metre ruler. It leapt up and fanged the ruler, which I dropped as I threw myself backwards to safety. Eventually it succumbed, but it left indentations in the ruler. Thank goodness for self-preservation, is all I can say. I'm not scared of spiders, honest, I just have a heightened respect for them...

[Sir Robin Goodfellow]

It's a good thing I don't live anywhere where there are spiders that can be dangerous, or there would be holes from shotgun blasts all over the house.

[NoZed Avenger]

Ah, rural Texas.

When young, my Dad drove my brother and I in the country on a dirt road (two dirt tracks for wheels and a thin strip of grass/weeds in the middle). We saw what looked like a mouse dart (mouse-like, very quickly) from the side of the road to the strip in the middle. Dad stopped the car so that we could look at the mouse.

When we moved toward the spot where it disappeared intp the weeds, though, it turned out to be a large spider. Mouse-sized.

Dad had steel-toed boots on, and moved his foot a little toward the spider to get it moving. Instead of moving off, though, it darted (see above re: quickly) forward and bit his boot.

We all distinctly heard the "ting!" sound as the fangs penetrated the leather and hit the steel plate.




We left shortly after that.






Don't ask about my snake stories. Just don't.

[Molinaro]

Just last night...


I was in bed, close to falling asleep, when I felt something on the top of my head. It could have been just an itch. It could have been a bit of hair being pulled off to one side.

Or it could have been a spider walking through my hair. :eye-poppi

I decided to play it safe and smacked myself on the top of my head with an open hand.

I then lay there wondering if I should make a thread on JREF today asking:

"How many times can you hit yourself on the top of the head during the night, because you think it may be a spider, without worrying that you have a problem?" :o


Now don't get me wrong.. I'm not afraid of spiders. I know I can take them. In fact, I've killed thousands and thousands of them. Problem is, I think word has gotten around and that's why they keep coming for me.

If I see a spider in my apartment, I will empty all furniture out of each room 1 after the other if I have to. I will not sleep until I am 100% certain it is dead.

[rdaneel]

Gianormous spiders (http://www.demotivateus.com/posters/giant-spiders-men-into-girls-demotivational-poster.jpg).

:D

[Skeptic Guy]

With reference to post #4, back in the 80's I was living in a student share house in Brisbane. The house was a Queenslander-style place, so it had wooden v-joint walls. Anyway, one bedtime I spotted a long grey hairy spider leg poking out of a spot where the wall meet the roof - right above my pillow. Clearly this was not a tenable situation, so quite a lot of insecticide was pumped into it, whereupon it started descending on a thread towards the bed. After a brief panic when I tore all the bedding off the bed it hit the base, flipped over and curled up. Now, I was going to scoop it onto a bit of paper and chuck it out a window, but some strange sense of self-preservation kicked in and I gave it a poke with a wood metre ruler. It leapt up and fanged the ruler, which I dropped as I threw myself backwards to safety. Eventually it succumbed, but it left indentations in the ruler. Thank goodness for self-preservation, is all I can say. I'm not scared of spiders, honest, I just have a heightened respect for them...

With the one I described above, it dropped from a light in the ceiling and as my wife called me in to the kitchen to defend her, it ran under the stove. I took a look under the stove and saw it sitting there right in the middle and figured I would make it uncomfortable by turning on the broiler. Soon it came out, I wacked it, it pretended to be dead (an evolutionary response?), I poked it, and it chased right after me. I have to confess that I gave a bit of a yell, well, maybe more of a scream, and didn't stop wacking it until it was completely dismembered.

Ah, rural Texas.

When young, my Dad drove my brother and I in the country on a dirt road (two dirt tracks for wheels and a thin strip of grass/weeds in the middle). We saw what looked like a mouse dart (mouse-like, very quickly) from the side of the road to the strip in the middle. Dad stopped the car so that we could look at the mouse.

When we moved toward the spot where it disappeared intp the weeds, though, it turned out to be a large spider. Mouse-sized.

Dad had steel-toed boots on, and moved his foot a little toward the spider to get it moving. Instead of moving off, though, it darted (see above re: quickly) forward and bit his boot.

We all distinctly heard the "ting!" sound as the fangs penetrated the leather and hit the steel plate.




We left shortly after that.






Don't ask about my snake stories. Just don't.

Had to be a tarantula. I lived in Fort Sill, Oklahoma and they had a place they called "Tarantula Hill". It was well-named.

And by the way, I just realized that I mispelled "El Paso" above. Oops.

Just last night...


I was in bed, close to falling asleep, when I felt something on the top of my head. It could have been just an itch. It could have been a bit of hair being pulled off to one side.

Or it could have been a spider walking through my hair. :eye-poppi

I decided to play it safe and smacked myself on the top of my head with an open hand.

I then lay there wondering if I should make a thread on JREF today asking:

"How many times can you hit yourself on the top of the head during the night, because you think it may be a spider, without worrying that you have a problem?" :o


Now don't get me wrong.. I'm not afraid of spiders. I know I can take them. In fact, I've killed thousands and thousands of them. Problem is, I think word has gotten around and that's why they keep coming for me.

If I see a spider in my apartment, I will empty all furniture out of each room 1 after the other if I have to. I will not sleep until I am 100% certain it is dead.

Were you able to confirm that it was a spider? At this time of year, my house is filled with house spiders. I have not beef with them, if they have no beef with me...I think.

[NoZed Avenger]

Had to be a tarantula. I lived in Fort Sill, Oklahoma and they had a place they called "Tarantula Hill". It was well-named.

Possibly, but I don't think so. It was a long time ago, but I have seen lots of tarantulas since, and while the size was about right, I have never seen one move as fast as this thing. I may well simply be trying to stay calm by imagining them as slow-moving so as to not upset the "YAAAAAAAAAH, SPIDER!" parts of my brain, though.

[NoZed Avenger]

Now don't get me wrong.. I'm not afraid of spiders. I know I can take them. In fact, I've killed thousands and thousands of them. Problem is, I think word has gotten around and that's why they keep coming for me.

If I see a spider in my apartment, I will empty all furniture out of each room 1 after the other if I have to. I will not sleep until I am 100% certain it is dead.

You're still a comparative newbie on the forums, so we'll let it slide, but the correct format is:

[in joke]

"If I see a spider in my apartment, I will kill it! No questions asked. It is DEAD."

[/in joke]

[Molinaro]

Were you able to confirm that it was a spider? At this time of year, my house is filled with house spiders. I have not beef with them, if they have no beef with me...I think.

Confirm?! :eek: Madness! Madness I say!

Bad enough the possibility that it was a spider. But to actualy open my eyes, or turn on a light and confirm that it realy was a spider would be true madness. :o

And to put this in some context I am 3 months shy of being a 40 year old man.

[Normal Dude]

Spider stories? MWAH!

All of mine are from the Army, and in particular two places: Georgia and Afghanistan (strangely, I never once encountered a spider in Iraq).

In Georgia during basic training, I often encountered super-large daddy long legs (AKA harvestmen, and not a spider, but is an arachnid) around the training ranges. The friggin things seemed to live in swarms; a few times an unfortunate private flopped down near a tree only to find himself covered in a dozen of them. Our first night out we all slept on the ground near a shooting range that we were going to use the next morning. It wasn't tactical, so we were all just bunched together in the wood line. One of these spiders decides to take a stroll through our group. (keep in mind many of us were not from that geographical area and unaccustomed to big-assed insects/spiders) I could track the spider's progress through the camp site by looking for the private jumping up.
A few weeks later, I am helping someone qualify for their mortar examine by lifting a mortar and shifting it. As my hands are full lifting this mortar, one of the spiders walks RIGHT ONTO MY FACE. It sits there right above my eyeball, so large that its leg span covered the upper half of my face. Somehow I didn't freak out, but gently set the mortar down, and ripped it off. It must have sat there for a good five seconds.
Also, the type of spider in the first picture was common in the area. They would create large webs spanning across small trails in the land navigation area that we would trek. I came very close to stumbling right into the center one of these webs and its freaky inhabitant.

Anyway, on to Afghanistan. A small detachment of us were sent to a firebase on the border with Pakistan. There, we waged an epic battle... not against AQ or Taliban, but against the spiders. Oh, yes. And not the "camel spiders", which were definitely freaky but didn't appear as often as these other ones. I can't tell you what they were, only that they were big. And aggressive. You know the spiders are bad when the guards in the lookout tower are more concerned about looking out for the spiders than getting shot at!
Anyways, the War on Spiders (TM) began in March, when it rained very frequently for a few weeks. The scurrying-type population decided to move into our tents. I remember the precipitating event very clearly: we were playing a card game in our tent and someone noticed a big spider crawling around on the support beams where we had hung our gear. Since a spider is not something you want to find when you put on your body armor, we took issue with our new tent mate. One of the guys swiped at it with a knife and missed. I am not making this next part up: the spider stopped, turned towards him, and slowly raised one leg and pointed it at him, as if to say, "YOOOOOUUUUUUU!!!". At this point we freaked out and hit it. Naturally it fell into our gear and we spent a good twenty minutes poking through stuff to find it. The war was on. Later that day someone stomped another one that was running on the floor towards where the lieutenant was sleeping. I will always believe in my heart that they intended to assassinate him and strike a pre-emptive decapitation strike against their foes.
After that, the little ****ers were everywhere, usually a couple found in the tent every day, and a few more in the guard tower every night. The tower was right up against the compound wall, and they would skitter along the wall and crawl into the tower, or come up on the tower legs from behind you. We would keep a close eye on the wall with our night vision goggles. We had a two-by-four there specifically for whacking spiders with.. it usually took TWO or THREE good smacks with it to kill them.
They sustained many casualties and even a few prisoners. One of our guys was a Bolivian soldier before he moved to America, and being from that part of the world, spiders didn't bother him. He caught a few and kept them in tupperware. One night as we were suiting up to go on patrol he felt like pulling a prank and opened one of his containers, and threw it into the middle of the tent. The tent, full of armed paratroopers, was cleared in about 0.032 seconds. :D
As for "camel spiders", we would catch them and have them fight each other (they kill each other on sight, apparently). Each platoon on the FOB had "their" boxer and we did a little WWF-style tournement.

[Correa Neto]

I had (and will still have) my share of spider experiences... Woke up in the middle of the night to find crab spiders or Phoneutrias about the size of my hand looking at me, had to cross huge nets with several Nephila, crawled through caves with lots of those Phoneutria too close for comfort, found crab spiders (and even worse - brown spiders) inside my boots and even a black widow (egg sack included) clinging at a rock sample I just took off from an outcrop. No, it ain't some look-how-macho-I-am tale. I hated all these experiences. Could pass very well without them.

Daddy long legs? Scorpions? Pseudoscorpions? Cute.
Spiders? YUCK! No logic, I know.

Now, if you excuse me, I will start running and screaming like a little girl. Just like I did after reading some posts from buggirl.

[quarky]

I could find a brown recluse in my house in 30 seconds. There's usually one behind any hanging art. They aren't very big, and definitely aren't aggressive toward people.
Everyone around here has them. The bite can suck, although it doesn't hurt.

[GT/CS]

Ah, rural Texas.

When young, my Dad drove my brother and I in the country on a dirt road (two dirt tracks for wheels and a thin strip of grass/weeds in the middle). We saw what looked like a mouse dart (mouse-like, very quickly) from the side of the road to the strip in the middle. Dad stopped the car so that we could look at the mouse.

When we moved toward the spot where it disappeared intp the weeds, though, it turned out to be a large spider. Mouse-sized.

Dad had steel-toed boots on, and moved his foot a little toward the spider to get it moving. Instead of moving off, though, it darted (see above re: quickly) forward and bit his boot.

We all distinctly heard the "ting!" sound as the fangs penetrated the leather and hit the steel plate.




We left shortly after that.






Don't ask about my snake stories. Just don't.

Slight derail.....

Good ole Texas snakes.

Pulling weeds the other day and reached under a plant to reach a weed, grabbed the weed and started to pull it out. Except it was oddly warm, and a little squishy.

You know that instant when your brain says, "Abort, abort, abort!!!!" but your hand doesn't get the message? Kind of like when you lock your keys in the car. There is that split second where you know what you did but it's too late.

That was the scenario with the warm weed. My brain was telling me something was wrong and I should probably let go of the item but my hand wouldn't believe it until my eyes saw it. Then, of course, it got flipped across the yard where the dog had a great time chasing it (just a little garden snake).

That was enough weeding for the day.

Sorry for the derail, back to creepy spiders.

[Wowbagger]

I once saw this spider, that was almost as tall as I was, at Dragon*Con!


...Or, maybe it was a Spider-Man?! Hmmm....

[arthwollipot]

They can give a nasty bite, apparently, but don't tend to attack humans.I know someone who was bitten by a huntsman. The huntsman was under considerable duress though - having just been mauled by cat before she stepped on it.

Apparently it stung like billyo for a couple of hours then went away.

[Hokulele]

OK, this is what a cane spider looks like.

http://hilojen.orangellous.com/images/large/080522_cane_spider.jpg

They are about the size of your hand, faster than gossip, and have been known to hide on the back of the roll of toilet paper. When you are using the facilities, tug one end of the roll, and have one of these precious pets appear on the square you were once planning to use, let's just say that "drip dry" suddenly becomes an option, and having your pants around your ankles does not help.

[B3LYP/CEP-31G(d)]

Every time I visit the caves at Turner Falls, Oklahoma, I have seen large clusters of daddy longlegs (Pholcidae) on the ceilings. This picture is from my trip there this past May.
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_186414907dd8685718.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=14182)

[Skeptic Guy]

Confirm?! :eek: Madness! Madness I say!

Bad enough the possibility that it was a spider. But to actualy open my eyes, or turn on a light and confirm that it realy was a spider would be true madness. :o

And to put this in some context I am 3 months shy of being a 40 year old man.

I wouldn't be real happy finding a spider crawling on me at night, either.

OK, this is what a cane spider looks like.

http://hilojen.orangellous.com/images/large/080522_cane_spider.jpg

They are about the size of your hand, faster than gossip, and have been known to hide on the back of the roll of toilet paper. When you are using the facilities, tug one end of the roll, and have one of these precious pets appear on the square you were once planning to use, let's just say that "drip dry" suddenly becomes an option, and having your pants around your ankles does not help.

That is one big-a...er, large spider. I'd certainly "pucker up" if I found one of those on my Scotties.

[arthwollipot]

I once drove home late at night. In those days I parked my car in a garage with a roll-a-door. As I closed the door this very large spider dropped on a thread within inches of my nose. It had clearly been on the outside of the door when I opened it.

[EvilBiker]

My wife has this attitude when it comes to spiders: "They have their space, I have my space. They enter my space, they die."

Seems a bit unfair on the spiders :p.

I am very partial to spiders, although the aggressive ones do freak me out sometimes. I remember a time at school when I was assigned the task of scoring for a cricket team. I wandered towards the scoring box, and came across a baboon spider (http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/november/baboon.htm). It was HUGE, and had spun a web to rival a circus safety net, right across the doorway of the box.

Naturally, being of an inquisitive bent with not an ounce of fear in me (ie. young and stupid), I poked it with a stick to get it to move away. It threw up its front legs, hissed at me for a second, and then LAUNCHED itself at my head. It must have travelled in the air for at least a meter.

It was the first time I had come across a spider this large, not to mention one that fought back. I had nightmares for weeks.

It was quite the learning experience. On the good side, I found out a lot about animal reflexes, mainly mine...

[UnrepentantSinner]

I try and leave a few spider webs around in my apartment (mostly small daddy longlegs types) unmolested since they seem to keep the roaches in check.

[EvilBiker]

I try and leave a few spider webs around in my apartment (mostly small daddy longlegs types) unmolested since they seem to keep the roaches in check.

They do an excellent job on mosquitoes too.

[learner]

Got up one morning and had a Goatee beard full of spider parts. looked cool.

[a_unique_person]

I once drove home late at night. In those days I parked my car in a garage with a roll-a-door. As I closed the door this very large spider dropped on a thread within inches of my nose. It had clearly been on the outside of the door when I opened it.

One good trick a huntsman likes to play is to enter the car via he ventilation slots. I have been driving along more than once, and wondered if I was hallucinating because out of nowhere, a big, black huntsman was walking across the inside of the windscreen.

[arthwollipot]

...Naturally, being of an inquisitive bent with not an ounce of fear in me (ie. young and stupid), I poked it with a stick to get it to move away. It threw up its front legs, hissed at me for a second, and then LAUNCHED itself at my head. It must have travelled in the air for at least a meter.

It was the first time I had come across a spider this large, not to mention one that fought back. I had nightmares for weeks...Be thankful you've never encountered a Sydney funnelweb. Those things will literally chase you out of your house. And they're potentially deadly if they catch you.

I try and leave a few spider webs around in my apartment (mostly small daddy longlegs types) unmolested since they seem to keep the roaches in check.A friend of mine moved house recently, and he captured some of the daddy longlegs from his old house and transferred them to the new place.

One good trick a huntsman likes to play is to enter the car via he ventilation slots. I have been driving along more than once, and wondered if I was hallucinating because out of nowhere, a big, black huntsman was walking across the inside of the windscreen.Yes, that's happened to me, too. I very nearly crashed.

[bellonax]

As for "camel spiders", we would catch them and have them fight each other (they kill each other on sight, apparently). Each platoon on the FOB had "their" boxer and we did a little WWF-style tournement.

I hate to bring a downer on an obviously ligh-hearted thread - but I think making an animal fight another to the death for your own amusement is a bit sick.

Unfortunately, it does seem to be another addition to the general attitude that a lot of people have that because bugs aren't cute, like dogs or cats, it doesn't matter how much pain we inflict on them, or what reasons we choose to kill them.

I think it's bad enough that people will happily end a creature's life only because of their own irrational fear (I'm not counting those who live in countries where the spider/snake etc may genuinely be deadly) but to actively torture it as well it really, really nasty.

[Ryan O'Dine]

It's not always about size.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_381849086580839f3.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=14187)

These little guys were nestled on a web against the frame of my front door. I observed them a few days until I realized how attractive the other side of the door might be.

[UnrepentantSinner]

I hate to bring a downer on an obviously ligh-hearted thread - but I think making an animal fight another to the death for your own amusement is a bit sick.

I agree with you in principle. Pirate Lad (where has he gotten off to, I miss him) shared with us some of his adventures in Iraq where his unit collected a variety of creepy crawlies and eventually had a death match (IIRC, the Scorpion won by taking a defensive posture). But I can understand where both ND and PL and their unit mates were coming from.

Personally, I don't see any difference between snakes and arachnids fighting to the death, dogs or humans, but I haven't spent 8-15 months in an environment where every corner my HMMWV took could have brought be within range of an IED or where poking my head out of an OP might have resulted in an RPG blowing it up or an AK roung going through my head.

It's just a different world people on the front lines - or even self-described REMFs like PirateLad who still was in a hostile theater and ***** conditions - live in than we back on the homefront.

And back to my personal death match dividing line (and one you noted in your post), I doubt PL, ND or anyone else in a combat environment, unless they were realled Effed up, would consider putting a mammal or human into a death match situation. They are there and we are not though so I would ask that you at least qualify your judgement of them.

[Trantor]

Here in Central Florida, the spider pictured in the OP is very common. Most people here call them Banana Spiders, due to the large yellow webs that they make and the fact that they have a lot of yellow color. Their proper name is the Golden Silk Spider.

I remember some years ago, several of my family and friends were out having a picnic and canoeing in an area where there was a heavy concentration of banana spiders. We had two canoes and four of us were busy having fun playing war games; attacking each other using those big water guns. We were busy in the attack mode, and the alcohol didn't help matters either; but next thing I knew, both canoes were traveling quickly toward a huge complex of webs spread out on branches over the water, with many large banana spiders waiting for us. I saw them seconds from impact, but there was no time to stop our movement toward them. My wife(who hates spiders with a passion) screamed like her life was in perile and jumped into the water just before we hit the web. Most of the spiders ran toward the branches when we impacted the web, but a couple of them got on my friend. One of them was in his hair. He screamed some words that can't be mentioned here and jumped in the water. I had webbing all over me, but fortunately no spiders. In the end, we were all in the water and managed to get our canoes out of the bushes, after making sure that no spiders were left in them. Banana Spiders are not dangerous and have very beautiful coloring, but they are big and scary looking.

Here is what Wikipedia has on Banana Spiders:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_spider

[Skeptic Guy]

My wife has this attitude when it comes to spiders: "They have their space, I have my space. They enter my space, they die."

Seems a bit unfair on the spiders :p.

I am very partial to spiders, although the aggressive ones do freak me out sometimes. I remember a time at school when I was assigned the task of scoring for a cricket team. I wandered towards the scoring box, and came across a baboon spider (http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/november/baboon.htm). It was HUGE, and had spun a web to rival a circus safety net, right across the doorway of the box.

Naturally, being of an inquisitive bent with not an ounce of fear in me (ie. young and stupid), I poked it with a stick to get it to move away. It threw up its front legs, hissed at me for a second, and then LAUNCHED itself at my head. It must have travelled in the air for at least a meter.

It was the first time I had come across a spider this large, not to mention one that fought back. I had nightmares for weeks.

It was quite the learning experience. On the good side, I found out a lot about animal reflexes, mainly mine...

I don't think you exaggerated on the distance it jumped!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20321234/


Baboon spiders can jump three feet when they rear up on the hind legs. Its large fangs can also deliver a painful bite.

[paperskater]

My roommate's childhood bedroom was in his mom's basement and apparently there were lots of spiders around. He's not really afraid of them, but one time he woke up and found one in his mouth. :eek:

I just about went into conniptions when he first told me that.

It reminds me of that one scene in "The Abyss" where that crab scuttles out of that dead guy's mouth.

[Normal Dude]

I hate to bring a downer on an obviously ligh-hearted thread - but I think making an animal fight another to the death for your own amusement is a bit sick.

Unfortunately, it does seem to be another addition to the general attitude that a lot of people have that because bugs aren't cute, like dogs or cats, it doesn't matter how much pain we inflict on them, or what reasons we choose to kill them.

I think it's bad enough that people will happily end a creature's life only because of their own irrational fear (I'm not counting those who live in countries where the spider/snake etc may genuinely be deadly) but to actively torture it as well it really, really nasty.

:rolleyes:

[DogB]

I live in Brisbane Australia and I’m pretty used to big spiders – Huntsman mainly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsman_spider

A while back I was camping with my wife and a few friends up in the hills inland of the city. This particular campground had a nice friendly toilet block with traditional long drop toilets – a real luxury when camping.

My wife came to get me after one visit to this facility. See she had entered the two cubical toilet and had noted that there were a bunch of big black moths in the left cubical but none in the right – later she noted that it would have been smart to think why that was. She entered and shut the door and was confronted by the biggest spider she had ever seen. After she finally escaped she made me overcome my natural phobic tendencies to see the cool spider.

Now like I said I’ve seen a lot of big spiders in my time but this was beyond my wildest imaginings. The cubical door was a fairly standard and I clearly remember noting the its legs were spanning the nearly the entire width of the door. My best guess is that it was about 45cm across. The body was tiny in comparison to its legs yet I remember being able to see my reflection in its eyes.

We spent the rest of the day sitting in our campsite and listening to the screams of other women as they discovered our friend. :)

The thing that irks me is that I didn’t think to take a photograph. When I got back to Brisbane I asked a friend of mine who works in the museum and he identified it as a Giant Grey Huntsman. He said that there was a lot of anecdotal evidence of spiders the size I had seen but no-one had ever provided good quality evidence. The prevailing view is that this species rarely exceeds 20cm leg span.

[bellonax]

I agree with you in principle. Pirate Lad (where has he gotten off to, I miss him) shared with us some of his adventures in Iraq where his unit collected a variety of creepy crawlies and eventually had a death match (IIRC, the Scorpion won by taking a defensive posture). But I can understand where both ND and PL and their unit mates were coming from.

Personally, I don't see any difference between snakes and arachnids fighting to the death, dogs or humans, but I haven't spent 8-15 months in an environment where every corner my HMMWV took could have brought be within range of an IED or where poking my head out of an OP might have resulted in an RPG blowing it up or an AK roung going through my head.

It's just a different world people on the front lines - or even self-described REMFs like PirateLad who still was in a hostile theater and ***** conditions - live in than we back on the homefront.

And back to my personal death match dividing line (and one you noted in your post), I doubt PL, ND or anyone else in a combat environment, unless they were realled Effed up, would consider putting a mammal or human into a death match situation. They are there and we are not though so I would ask that you at least qualify your judgement of them.

I understand where you're coming from. My brother is a paratrooper and is currently in Afghanistan and was previously in Iraq. He has told me stories of things that he has done and seen other people do that I really haven't liked but I know that it is probably a bit harsh to judge people under those kind of conditions. The thing is that if ND's story was the only story I'd heard of this kind of thing I'd probably let it go - but it's not.

I have vegetarian friends who see nothing wrong with killing spiders and other creatures (even moths) because they don't like them or because they have an irrational fear. I remember "friends" at school stamping on daddy-long-legs and beetles because they thought it was funny, or sometimes because they knew I liked them.

Would anyone here stamp on a mouse if they didn't like them? Or kill a cat?

It probably was harsh of me to judge ND considering the circumstances he was under but what's the justification for everyone else? I live in Britain where we don't have venomous spiders but people happily kill them anyway. And even in countries where the creatures are potentially dangerous (at least to children or the elderly/sick) how often are they killed because they're a threat and how often out of some knee-jerk reaction of disgust?

This is probably the wrong thread to be having this discussion in but it seems to me that the majority of people really don't see bugs in the same light as other animals and therefore don't even begin to treat them with the same level of respect.

[lauwersw]

No really scary spiders over here as well, but any spider inside the house is being killed. How do you get them outside without killing them? They do run away too quickly otherwise. And there's no way I can leave them inside, my girlfriend is enormously scared about them. If a spider would hide in an unreachable place, she wouldn't sleep the whole night and that's no exaggeration.

And I can understand her a bit. I'm not too afraid to kill them (she is), but I wouldn't touch them for any money. I'm not afraid of any other bug, but somehow I also have an irrational disgust for spiders. I do know they are not really dangerous and that they are not very different from a beetle or whatever, but still...

Is there any proof that this is somehow genetically inherited or so? Quite some people seem to suffer from it, but many others don't.

Also: what do you with mosquitoes? Feed them happily during the night or kill them? They can be so annoying! I would never torture any animal for fun though!

[lauwersw]

Also: what do you with mosquitoes? Feed them happily during the night or kill them? They can be so annoying! I would never torture any animal for fun though!

I just realised: of course you leave them to the spiders! :)

[Mister Scoville]

Good to see so many Aussies with arachnid horror stories. NormalDude at #29 reminded me of an incident I thought I had erased (thanks ND): on an Army exercise in the 90s I put my boots on first thing to go on duty in the CP. Felt slightly uncomfortable all morning in the foot-region, so when I came off duty decided to check it out. I was sitting with a mate when my boot came off to reveal the remains of a truly massive (or so it seemed at the time) huntsman entangled in my sock. I think I might have shut down for a few seconds before the palpitations started, and while I was in the middle of the creeping horrors, my 'mate' was laughing so hard he nearly fell off his chair. 13 years in the Army Reserve and I hadn't learned the trick of putting the mouth of one boot into the other and tightening the laces to stop just this sort of thing! The Regular officers must have been taught this at Duntroon but somehow it passed me by... I dunno.

[bellonax]

No really scary spiders over here as well, but any spider inside the house is being killed. How do you get them outside without killing them? They do run away too quickly otherwise. And there's no way I can leave them inside, my girlfriend is enormously scared about them. If a spider would hide in an unreachable place, she wouldn't sleep the whole night and that's no exaggeration.

And I can understand her a bit. I'm not too afraid to kill them (she is), but I wouldn't touch them for any money. I'm not afraid of any other bug, but somehow I also have an irrational disgust for spiders. I do know they are not really dangerous and that they are not very different from a beetle or whatever, but still...

Is there any proof that this is somehow genetically inherited or so? Quite some people seem to suffer from it, but many others don't.

Also: what do you with mosquitoes? Feed them happily during the night or kill them? They can be so annoying! I would never torture any animal for fun though!

If they're slow enough to kill then they're slow enough to catch. I'm terrified of spiders but I can still bring myself to pop a glass over them (or the occasional tupperware for the really big ones). Then you put paper underneath and chuck them outside.

Mosquitoes are harmful so I don't have a problem with people killing them.

[lauwersw]

You're brave. At least braver than I. But maybe I might bring myself to apply your method one day.

To increase my self-esteem a bit, I distinctly remember once wiping a large spider outside with a broom (having a large broomstick of course). Maybe I should try that more often. Thanks for reminding me of all this, killing them is indeed becoming a too easy habit.

[Ashles]

If they're slow enough to kill then they're slow enough to catch. I'm terrified of spiders but I can still bring myself to pop a glass over them (or the occasional tupperware for the really big ones). Then you put paper underneath and chuck them outside.
You obviously don't have a full on phobia of spiders.

Mosquitoes are harmful so I don't have a problem with people killing them.
Not in England they aren't.

What about flies - are you okay with them being killed?

[bellonax]

You obviously don't have a full on phobia of spiders.


Not in England they aren't.

What about flies - are you okay with them being killed?

If I see a spider I'm scared and I would never be able to bring myself to touch one - but, no, I don't have the kind of arachnaphobia where a picture of a spider would frighten me, or one in real life would give me a panic attack.

I don't see that as much of an excuse though - a phobia that bad must be very debilitating and surely worthwhile trying to overcome.

In Britain people tend to call those harmless mosquitoes "midges" so I assumed he meant full on malaria mosquitoes. Nevertheless, if something cause you pain, and not just in self-defense, then I don't have a problem with someone killing it.

Regarding flies - it would depend which ones you meant. Those little tiny ones that people seem to so enjoy snatching out of the air - I don't like it when people kill them. Annoyance isn't a good reason to take away something's one shot at existance.

If you mean ones like bluebottles that spread disease by leaving crap on food or laying their eggs on it - go ahead.

[Skeptic Guy]

I hate to bring a downer on an obviously ligh-hearted thread - but I think making an animal fight another to the death for your own amusement is a bit sick.

Unfortunately, it does seem to be another addition to the general attitude that a lot of people have that because bugs aren't cute, like dogs or cats, it doesn't matter how much pain we inflict on them, or what reasons we choose to kill them.

I think it's bad enough that people will happily end a creature's life only because of their own irrational fear (I'm not counting those who live in countries where the spider/snake etc may genuinely be deadly) but to actively torture it as well it really, really nasty.

This is the wrong thread, but look, we kill insects pretty much every time we walk out of the house. We can't help not to. We kill roaches every chance we get, they spread disease and sickness. And while I try to carry out the spiders and moths, sometimes I don't. I don't go around picking the wings off of flies, or the legs of ants, and I don't go out of my way to kill anything, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over an insect.

I agree that there is the cuteness factor involved in deciding which animals are "ok" to kill, which is why I never understand it when people claim it's so wrong to eat horses, dogs, cats, etc. If it's ok to kill a cow then why not a cat?

I love my dogs, but only because they are my pets and I treat them like my kids. But if there is some farmer somewhere in China that wants to raise dogs like he would cows, I have no problem with that.

Let's not torture anything, but let's not try to sell that all "god's creatures" should be treated the same. If the insect is outside, I leave it alone, if it is in the house, I reserve the right to not leave it alone.

Here in Central Florida, the spider pictured in the OP is very common. Most people here call them Banana Spiders, due to the large yellow webs that they make and the fact that they have a lot of yellow color. Their proper name is the Golden Silk Spider.

I remember some years ago, several of my family and friends were out having a picnic and canoeing in an area where there was a heavy concentration of banana spiders. We had two canoes and four of us were busy having fun playing war games; attacking each other using those big water guns. We were busy in the attack mode, and the alcohol didn't help matters either; but next thing I knew, both canoes were traveling quickly toward a huge complex of webs spread out on branches over the water, with many large banana spiders waiting for us. I saw them seconds from impact, but there was no time to stop our movement toward them. My wife(who hates spiders with a passion) screamed like her life was in perile and jumped into the water just before we hit the web. Most of the spiders ran toward the branches when we impacted the web, but a couple of them got on my friend. One of them was in his hair. He screamed some words that can't be mentioned here and jumped in the water. I had webbing all over me, but fortunately no spiders. In the end, we were all in the water and managed to get our canoes out of the bushes, after making sure that no spiders were left in them. Banana Spiders are not dangerous and have very beautiful coloring, but they are big and scary looking.

Here is what Wikipedia has on Banana Spiders:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_spider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_spider)

I know that it wasn't funny at the time, but that visual gave me a chuckle.

I live in Brisbane Australia and I’m pretty used to big spiders – Huntsman mainly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsman_spider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsman_spider)

A while back I was camping with my wife and a few friends up in the hills inland of the city. This particular campground had a nice friendly toilet block with traditional long drop toilets – a real luxury when camping.

My wife came to get me after one visit to this facility. See she had entered the two cubical toilet and had noted that there were a bunch of big black moths in the left cubical but none in the right – later she noted that it would have been smart to think why that was. She entered and shut the door and was confronted by the biggest spider she had ever seen. After she finally escaped she made me overcome my natural phobic tendencies to see the cool spider.

Now like I said I’ve seen a lot of big spiders in my time but this was beyond my wildest imaginings. The cubical door was a fairly standard and I clearly remember noting the its legs were spanning the nearly the entire width of the door. My best guess is that it was about 45cm across. The body was tiny in comparison to its legs yet I remember being able to see my reflection in its eyes.

We spent the rest of the day sitting in our campsite and listening to the screams of other women as they discovered our friend. :)

The thing that irks me is that I didn’t think to take a photograph. When I got back to Brisbane I asked a friend of mine who works in the museum and he identified it as a Giant Grey Huntsman. He said that there was a lot of anecdotal evidence of spiders the size I had seen but no-one had ever provided good quality evidence. The prevailing view is that this species rarely exceeds 20cm leg span.

You should have told it to lock the stall door nex time. That way it wouldn't have kept getting interrupted.



(snip)

Would anyone here stamp on a mouse if they didn't like them? Or kill a cat?

(snip)


No, but I have snapped the neck of a few mice in my time. Not much different.

[jadebox]

Personally, I like large spiders ....

http://www.payloadbay.com/gallery/d/16848-2/2007-08-11-09-35-36.jpg

Especially when flown using large rocket motors ...

http://www.payloadbay.com/gallery/d/16875-2/2007-08-11-09-47-36_4.jpg

:-)

-- Roger

[Giraffe107]

Another Queenslander here. I don't mind huntsmans. We used to live in the bush, and every night I would have at least one in my room on the wall. They left me alone, I left them alone. A neighbour tried to catch one once, and it bit his hand- because he didn't have good hygiene at the best of times it ended up getting infected. On the upside, they ate bugs for us.

Lots of little spiders are the ones I hate, like the ones Ryan posted.

I don't mind snakes either. In that house, we had tree snakes wrapped around the computer cables, a python under the washing machine, and one time a python got under the bonnet of the car and sat on the engine- it was the day my Mum was having it serviced, the mechanics didn't appreciate it! When we got back home, the snake was still there, but he left soon, on his own.

[dudalb]

Anybody else see The History CHannel show on the Hunt for Giant Spiders last night?
Man, so of those dudes are big....
It's ironic that the Big Spiders are not that dangerous to Human Beings. It the smaller ones that have lethal venom.

[Akhenaten]

Personally, I like large spiders ....

<pic snipped>

Especially when flown using large rocket motors ...

<to save B/W>

:-)

-- Roger


That's awesome.

The truly scary part is that somebody had this idea. :D

[Dragoonster]

This is probably the wrong thread to be having this discussion in but it seems to me that the majority of people really don't see bugs in the same light as other animals and therefore don't even begin to treat them with the same level of respect.

I sort of do. In general go out of my way to avoid killing any insect, even flies and those disgusting camel crickets, but there are circumstances where I'd kill any animal, including humans. Mostly because they'd be a threat to some other animal I like more, or myself. Or if an infestation has gotten out of control.

I've always loved spiders though, and would visit them around the yard or house. And yeah, sometimes I'd catch a little grub or ant and plop it into their web if I noticed they didn't have any recent catches, with the justification that I like spiders better and want to ensure their survival. Guess that's pretty flimsy but I don't feel great guilt over it.

It's weird that I don't have a phobia though. As a kid on a camping trip I was happily running through the woods and ran face-first into a very large orb web, and a large spider dropped on me and completely freaked me out. Another time as a kid I was picking up a large rock on our porch and a black widow and her 100 babies fell from the underside onto my bare feet.

But I do love them, and can remember individual spiders from 20+ years back, though I've never had one as a pet.

[Skeptic Guy]

Personally, I like large spiders ....

http://www.payloadbay.com/gallery/d/16848-2/2007-08-11-09-35-36.jpg

Especially when flown using large rocket motors ...

http://www.payloadbay.com/gallery/d/16875-2/2007-08-11-09-47-36_4.jpg

:-)

-- Roger

That's great! I've launched model rockets before, but nothing that big or cool!

[UnrepentantSinner]

This is probably the wrong thread to be having this discussion in but it seems to me that the majority of people really don't see bugs in the same light as other animals and therefore don't even begin to treat them with the same level of respect.

Thanks for being more magnanimous in your response to me than I was in my original to you. While I think we should give folks in theater some (or a lot of slack) on the issue, I concur wholeheartedly with this sentiment and think it's really a shame. My job often has me outside at night and I run across a lot of bugs and other creepy crawlies and I go out of my way not to step on or otherwise molest them because I'm not god and don't feel it's my right to extinguish their life for no reason.

[Giggywig]

When i lived in Mexico we would always have several wall crab spiders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenopidae) in the house. I think they are harmless so I never cared, plus I hoped they ate the mosquitoes. Anyways, one day at around midnight I noticed there were a bunch of baby spiders coming out from behind my dresser. Yes, letting the spiders live on my wall had come to its logical conclusion. So I decided to be eco-friendly and toss them out the window while I counted them for the benefit of some people I was chatting with on IRC. After an hour and over 100 spiders out the window, they had spread to cover most of the walls and the ceiling and I got the heebie jeebies and decided to go sleep somewhere else that night. The spiders that were still left the next day died when I brought it WMDs.

We kill roaches every chance we get, they spread disease and sickness.
Do they? I know the bugs that like to feast on blood are quite good at spreading diseases, and I assume flies do too considering their interests. I also have a strong negative reaction toward roaches (which usually ends with them flatter than they started) but are they known to actually transmit diseases?

[bellonax]

This is the wrong thread, but look, we kill insects pretty much every time we walk out of the house. We can't help not to. We kill roaches every chance we get, they spread disease and sickness. And while I try to carry out the spiders and moths, sometimes I don't. I don't go around picking the wings off of flies, or the legs of ants, and I don't go out of my way to kill anything, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over an insect.

I agree that there is the cuteness factor involved in deciding which animals are "ok" to kill, which is why I never understand it when people claim it's so wrong to eat horses, dogs, cats, etc. If it's ok to kill a cow then why not a cat?

I love my dogs, but only because they are my pets and I treat them like my kids. But if there is some farmer somewhere in China that wants to raise dogs like he would cows, I have no problem with that.

Let's not torture anything, but let's not try to sell that all "god's creatures" should be treated the same. If the insect is outside, I leave it alone, if it is in the house, I reserve the right to not leave it alone.

No, but I have snapped the neck of a few mice in my time. Not much different.

The mouse was probably a bad example as they spread disease.

However, I think you're missing my point here. I'm not saying you shouldn't kill insects, or any animals ever - I eat meat so it would be immenseley hypocritical of me to do so.

I'm just saying I think we should have reasons to kill things. I don't have a problem with people eating dogs either (although the way they keep them can be horrible) - as far as I'm concerned to eat and self-defense or the defense of others (from either death, disease or just pain) are good reasons to kill something.

But I don't think annoyance, laziness or irrational fear are good reasons - and they usually are the reasons that people kill insects/bugs.

We have more than enough examples on this thread of people saying that spiders "creep them out", or they can't think of another way to get them out of the house, so they kill them.

To try and get everyone to treat all animals the same is most likely a very futile exercise - I doubt anyone on here would choose the life of a wasp over a whale, and maybe they shouldn't. But it would be nice if people just gave it a little more thought before they end the life of an insect or bug just because it's so easy, and doesn't really elicit much of an emotional response.

I doubt it'll change a thing but it'd make me happier.

[bellonax]

Thanks for being more magnanimous in your response to me than I was in my original to you. While I think we should give folks in theater some (or a lot of slack) on the issue, I concur wholeheartedly with this sentiment and think it's really a shame. My job often has me outside at night and I run across a lot of bugs and other creepy crawlies and I go out of my way not to step on or otherwise molest them because I'm not god and don't feel it's my right to extinguish their life for no reason.

:) Thank you

[Alareth]

I once stepped on a spider in my kitchen and when I lifted my foot there were (what seemed like) hundreds of tiny pinhead sized baby spiders running in every direction.

Do mother spiders transport egg sacs to other locations?

[Giggywig]

I once stepped on a spider in my kitchen and when I lifted my foot there were (what seemed like) hundreds of tiny pinhead sized baby spiders running in every direction.

Do mother spiders transport egg sacs to other locations?

One day you'll be faced with hundreds of spiders saying "My name is Inigo Montoya. You stepped on my mother. Prepare to die."

[richardm]

How do you get them outside without killing them?

These things (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spider-Bug-Buster/dp/B000LW1SWG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=garden&qid=1225454926&sr=8-1) work surprisingly well for most UK-sized spiders. For larger ones, this is just the job. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brainstorm-Spider-Catcher/dp/B000G04RDK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen&qid=1225454926&sr=8-3)

For really big ones I recommend a shotgun, and to hell with their "right to life".

[Hokulele]

We have more than enough examples on this thread of people saying that spiders "creep them out", or they can't think of another way to get them out of the house, so they kill them.


I do not kill them, I prefer to run away and hide.

[Alareth]

I do not kill them, I prefer to run away and hide.

What if the spider tries to hide in the same spot?

[Hokulele]

What if the spider tries to hide in the same spot?


For the observer, indescribable hilarity ensues.

[UnrepentantSinner]

For the observer, indescribable hilarity ensues.

Shouldn't you be out trick or treating right now? I mean you in a Cinderella costume could easily pass for a 5th grader out for some candy.

[Skeptic Guy]

I thought she was dressing as one of Cinderella's siblings?

[Skeptic Guy]

One day you'll be faced with hundreds of spiders saying "My name is Inigo Montoya. You stepped on my mother. Prepare to die."

http://re3.yt-thm-a02.yimg.com/image/25/m1/2023959727 (http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0WTb_itfQxJhTgBcDaJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBpaWhqZmN tBHBvcwMzBHNlYwNzcgR2dGlkAw--/SIG=1i9a68s0r/EXP=1225641773/**http%3A//images.search.yahoo.com/images/view%3Fback=http%253A%252F%252Fimages.search.yahoo .com%252Fsearch%252Fimages%253Fei%253DUTF-8%2526p%253Dspiders%252520carrying%252520young%252 6fr2%253Dtab-web%2526fr%253Dhp-pvdt%26w=250%26h=188%26imgurl=www.cbf.org%252Fimag es%252Fcontent%252Fpagebuilder%252F106088.jpg%26ru rl=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.cbf.org%252Fsite%252FPag eServer%253Fpagename%253Dexpedition_day_12%26size= 11.5kB%26name=106088.jpg%26p=spiders%2Bcarrying%2B young%26type=JPG%26oid=856fe14a08532516%26no=3%26t t=7%26sigr=11tuf8ids%26sigi=11hqbpr4j%26sigb=13968 r0le)

Did someone say they needed a ride?

"Say 'hello' to my little friend.

[dbalsdon]

Not really got any stories about spiders.

I used to own 2 tarantulas: a chilean rose, and a Brazilian Salmon Pink(supposedly the 3rd largest tarantula species).

On the bug v bug topic, i'm definetely against it.

Though, one of the worst things i've seen pictures of(thankfully, not seen the video), is off a tarantula that has been placed in a blender, with other ingredients. Completely uncalled for.


ETA: regarding the pic in the previous post:
While the site of all the spiderlings being on the mothers back like that doesn't really freak me out, images of the eyes of the Wolf Spider(which is well known for carrying its young), does freak me out a little. Something about a small bug having, humanish looking, eyes freaks me out :s

[Amapola]

This happened to three friends of mine a while back... I'll make up names for them, not so much to protect the innocent but to keep them from finding out I Told.

Linda was a very experienced camper, a person who had camped in the wilderness many times. She decided her friend Rhonda, and daughter Brandi, needed to get out in the Great Outdoors. Rhonda was more of a city girl but had done a little car camping, and she thought a camping trip was just the thing for young Brandi's education. Brandi thought anyone who went somewhere without electricity, movie theatres or a nail salon was certifiable. However she agreed to go on this trip.

Linda realized she would have to rent most of the equipment - her tent wasn't big enough for three people and she only had one sleeping bag - so they rented a nice big tent and the other necessary equipment. The camping site was a developed site where you park your car, with a nice little cooking grill there, along with running water and flush toilets. They figured this was about as much Wilderness Experience as Brandi could handle.

They got to their site at dusk and Linda immediately set up the tent to try and get everything done before it was too dark to see. She was just finishing laying out the sleeping bags when she realized her hand was right next to a Very. Large. Spider.

Moving her hand with a grace and speed she hadn't realized she posessed, she sat back and contemplated her options. There was no way she was sleeping in the tent with that spider in there, and she was pretty sure if Brandi saw it, she'd go into a screaming fit and no doubt be marked for life.

This spider was huge. The legs spanned a good three inches. It was very shiny and jet black, and except for the size, looked an awful lot like a black widow. It was in a mesh pocket on the side of the tent, the sort of pocket where you might put a flashlight or some other small thing you want to keep track of. Luckily she had not upset it while putting out the bags and the spider was just sitting there very quietly.

Keeping careful eye on the spider (for it wouldn't do to lose sight of it and NOT KNOW where it was) Linda called to Rhonda to come and help her with a tiny spider (she held her hands about a foot apart). Rhonda was terrified of spiders and probably not much use, but Linda just felt like she needed a little back up in this situation.

Making sure Brandi was occupied with her iPod, Rhonda climbed in the tent and nearly shrieked when she saw the spider. But she too did not want Brandi to be frightened, so she bravely cowered in the tent behind Linda. They talked about what to do for a while. Linda finally decided the best option was to kill it. She just could not see any way to get it out of the mesh pocket and out the door. It was just pure luck the spider was being so quiet and holding so still. She may as well take advantage.

Linda very carefully positioned one vibram-soled hiking boot behind the spider, and using the other hiking boot, gave the spider a tremendous smack.

It didn't smash!

This really gave Linda the creeps, so she gave it three more mighty wallops. It still didn't smash!

It finally dawned on Linda that what she had been so scared of was a black plastic spider ring, the sort kids love to try and scare each other with.

This was a huge relief to all three. They agreed that seeing something like that could be really scary, so when they returned the rental tent, they cleaned it out very carefully and put the spider back in the mesh pocket.

[Zep]

Australian tropics grows big stuff...

Bird-eating spider
http://www.bugman123.com/Bugs/BirdEatingSpider.jpg

[SeanDamnit]

I'm a pretty normal guy under most circumstances, but I am terrified of spiders regardless of size. Probably comes from regularly waking up to spiders falling on my face when I was younger. Just reading about spiders makes my skin itchy...I don't know why I'm looking through this thread.

And I live in Southern California, where I thought that quarter sized spider that was on my car the other day was a monster. How do you people live in any area with spiders the size of your friggin fist?

[dbalsdon]

That's a great shedding Zep. None of mine have ever been that good :(

That a Goliath Bird Eater?


How do you people live in any area with spiders the size of your friggin fist?
Unfortunately, I don't :(

I really wish I did though. Would be amazing. The best thing I can hope to see, is one of these 'dangerous' species of spider that are apparently starting to live in the uk. Other then that, I guess I could go up onto Dartmoor and see some Adders. UK wildlife is too safe :(

[arthwollipot]

This spider was huge. The legs spanned a good three inches.Pfftt. *snort* Three inches? Oh yes (giggle) that's really huge. (muffled laughter)

[Amapola]

Pfftt. *snort* Three inches? Oh yes (giggle) that's really huge. (muffled laughter)

Hey! They can only make those plastic spider molds so big, you know. :D

[Trantor]

Pfftt. *snort* Three inches? Oh yes (giggle) that's really huge. (muffled laughter)

I got a nice laugh from that statement as well. In my earlier post, I mentioned one of my encounters with the common Banana Spider here in Florida. Generally harmless, but can give a nasty bite if threatened. They are the largest Non-Tarantula spider in the US.

Another common resident in our area is the Wolf Spider. The second largest Non-Tarantula spider in the US. At least with the Banana Spiders, they mostly stay on their very impressive webs, which usually span between two or more tree trucks. The Wolf Spiders usually live underground in holes that they dig out, and they love to come into peoples homes when looking for a nice warm place to hang out.

Last year, I got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. Usually, there is enough light to see what you are doing, so I don't bother to turn on the light. In this instance, I decided to turn on the light, and when I did, I got a big surprise. There, just an inch or so from the light switch, was one of the biggest Wolf spiders I have ever seen. It was almost the same size as my hand. My sleepiness was instantly gone! I was scared, but moved my hand away slowly. I thought of my wife, who had used the restroom just minutes before I did(she didn't turn on the light), knowing that the spider must have been there. I actually had a muted laugh while looking at the spider, at the thought of what my wife would have done had she turned on the light.

I decided to be a hero and kill the monster right then and there. The spider started to move, so I grabbed the towel and wrapped it around my hand. It took a moment to conquer my own fear, but I went after the spider. The first strike took two legs off and it fell to the floor and moved surprisingly fast on it's six legs. I gave chase and cornered it next to the bathroom cabinet, where I gave it the final and fatal blow. I wanted to wake my wife up and show her my war prize, but decided to let her sleep.:)

Here are pictures of a Wolf Spider:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hogna_helluo_cropped.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wolf_spider_tunnel.jpg

[dbalsdon]

Here are pictures of a Wolf Spider:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:H...uo_cropped.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hogna_helluo_cropped.jpg)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:W...der_tunnel.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wolf_spider_tunnel.jpg)

You just had to, didn't you?

*shudders*

[arthwollipot]

I love that second photo. I think I'm going to steal that for my screensaver.

[Zep]

FWIW, the Australian Redback spider is really just a variant on the Black Widow. It is also sometimes called the Jockey spider. We consider it painful but not the worst one we have about the place.
http://www.nikkish.net/jeff/2005/05/watch-your-back-from-red-back.html


A bit more serious are the Funnel-web and Trapdoor spiders. Nasty buggers, these! Both dangerous and aggressive.
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200703/r129695_427529.jpg

[bellonax]

I decided to be a hero and kill the monster right then and there.

Yes. Very heroic.

[Trantor]

Yes. Very heroic.

Well, when faced with the situation that I was in, I only had two choices. The first choice is to run away fast; in which case, I would risk losing track of the spider and I would have had to eventually come back and find it. If my wife found out about our visitor, she would have pushed me into the bathroom and closed the door, while she ran. The second choice was to take action then and there. I chose the second choice, not because I'm brave, but because I didn't want to do choice number one.:D

[Skeptic Guy]

This happened to three friends of mine a while back... I'll make up names for them, not so much to protect the innocent but to keep them from finding out I Told.

Linda was a very experienced camper, a person who had camped in the wilderness many times. She decided her friend Rhonda, and daughter Brandi, needed to get out in the Great Outdoors. Rhonda was more of a city girl but had done a little car camping, and she thought a camping trip was just the thing for young Brandi's education. Brandi thought anyone who went somewhere without electricity, movie theatres or a nail salon was certifiable. However she agreed to go on this trip.

Linda realized she would have to rent most of the equipment - her tent wasn't big enough for three people and she only had one sleeping bag - so they rented a nice big tent and the other necessary equipment. The camping site was a developed site where you park your car, with a nice little cooking grill there, along with running water and flush toilets. They figured this was about as much Wilderness Experience as Brandi could handle.

They got to their site at dusk and Linda immediately set up the tent to try and get everything done before it was too dark to see. She was just finishing laying out the sleeping bags when she realized her hand was right next to a Very. Large. Spider.

Moving her hand with a grace and speed she hadn't realized she posessed, she sat back and contemplated her options. There was no way she was sleeping in the tent with that spider in there, and she was pretty sure if Brandi saw it, she'd go into a screaming fit and no doubt be marked for life.

This spider was huge. The legs spanned a good three inches. It was very shiny and jet black, and except for the size, looked an awful lot like a black widow. It was in a mesh pocket on the side of the tent, the sort of pocket where you might put a flashlight or some other small thing you want to keep track of. Luckily she had not upset it while putting out the bags and the spider was just sitting there very quietly.

Keeping careful eye on the spider (for it wouldn't do to lose sight of it and NOT KNOW where it was) Linda called to Rhonda to come and help her with a tiny spider (she held her hands about a foot apart). Rhonda was terrified of spiders and probably not much use, but Linda just felt like she needed a little back up in this situation.

Making sure Brandi was occupied with her iPod, Rhonda climbed in the tent and nearly shrieked when she saw the spider. But she too did not want Brandi to be frightened, so she bravely cowered in the tent behind Linda. They talked about what to do for a while. Linda finally decided the best option was to kill it. She just could not see any way to get it out of the mesh pocket and out the door. It was just pure luck the spider was being so quiet and holding so still. She may as well take advantage.

Linda very carefully positioned one vibram-soled hiking boot behind the spider, and using the other hiking boot, gave the spider a tremendous smack.

It didn't smash!

This really gave Linda the creeps, so she gave it three more mighty wallops. It still didn't smash!

It finally dawned on Linda that what she had been so scared of was a black plastic spider ring, the sort kids love to try and scare each other with.

This was a huge relief to all three. They agreed that seeing something like that could be really scary, so when they returned the rental tent, they cleaned it out very carefully and put the spider back in the mesh pocket.

You had me going there. That was a neat story.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that when I lived in LA I had to do a regular cleaning out of black widows from our back yard. They were all over the place. I would have freaked if I saw one with a 3-inch diameter.

[N.Texas]

Mmmm, camel spiders.

h8DXzjvnzPk

[arthwollipot]

Here's a pic I snapped this morning in the bathroom. It's better at higher resolution, but...

The midget and the monster!

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_4332492dfafebc7a4.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=14366)