Dangerous Spiders ?

[Nobody]

I am not generally scared of normal spiders ie the kind that live in north western Europe but I can't stand the giant poisonous Australian things.

Today I found a spider in my house that I think was too large and hideous to be a British species. It's body was about 1cm in diameter, it had legs just over an inch long and was a brown suede colour and hairy. It had large black fangs and eyes.

The thing is a relation of mine who also lives in my house was in the merchant navy up until 2 years ago and has travelled just about everywhere in the world. Would it be possible that a spider or two from say Australia or Mexico managed to get into his luggage and escaped into a warm cupboard in my house where it is protected from the British winters ?

I managed to trap the spider and flush it down the toilet after spending half an hour spraying it with Fly Killer which just seemed to annoy it and certainly didn't kill it or appear to harm it.

Once before I found an even larger spider in my house which I crushed.

Comments ?

[bluess]

More than possible.

I live on the US East Coast, near a state park. I routinly find spiders as big as my palm in the house. (And, yes, I shriek at the top of my lungs and get Mr.Blue to corral and then exile the monster to the outside.)

[pipelineaudio]

post pics next time :)

[bluess]

I'm usually too busy screaming and climbing onto a table top to remember the camera....:D

[Soapy Sam]

Raft spider? Common in East Anglia. They get pretty big. Biggest I ever saw was about the size you describe. Took me an hour to pluck up the courage to herd the monster into a glass and prepare to sling it out the window.

The GF wandered in, took it out the box, examined it , made some comment about wooses and placed it gently outside on the windowsill.

I think the giant poisonous Australian things are Koalas.

By the way- spiders have book lungs and a totally different blood system from insects. They are about as closely related to insects as you are to a dog. The only insect killer that works on them is a rolled up newspaper. Anything else just gets them angry, so they run up your arm and bite your head off.

Some day, I'll tell you about Camel Spiders, just to ruin your whole month.

[zakur]

Could be a common House spider (http://www.arkive.org/species/ARK/invertebrates_terrestrial_and_freshwater/Tegenaria_domestica/) or Wolf spider (http://www.arkive.org/species/ARK/invertebrates_terrestrial_and_freshwater/Pardosa_amentata/). Both are common in the UK, and are brown with bodies up to 1cm long.

Of the House Spider, the ARKive article says:The house spider is probably the best known and perhaps the most hated of the British spiders, and is often encountered trapped in the bath. It is fairly large and hairy, has long legs and varies in colour from pale to dark brown.
More:

http://www.kendall-bioresearch.co.uk/spider.htm

[Tirdun]

We occationally get these
pretties (http://bugguide.net/node/view/44000/bgpage) in the basement. They're either wolf spiders or "giant house spiders". (http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/images/giganteathumb.jpg)


They're highly dangerous if you panic and slam into a doorframe, otherwise you're pretty safe.

We call them "teacup" spiders. :)

[bluess]

The monsters in our house are wolf spiders.

And after looking at the pictures, I have the heebie-jeebies.

[Overman]

My mother got bitten by a brown recluse spider when we lived in Texas. They are real small and have a small violin shaped mark on them. They are the second most poisenous spider in the US and are more common than the Black Widow. She had to have a whole cut in her leg where the doctors pulled out dead tissue. The process was repeated. It sucked. I hate spiders but wow are they amazing!

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Could've been worse, could've been this guy:
http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/page/i-1746.jpg
http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/page/i-1747.jpg

[Nick Bogaerts]

A spider with a body of 1 centimetre and legs of 1 inch must be from a species endemic to the UK: the Partially Metricated Spider.

[bluess]

A spider with a body of 1 centimetre and legs of 1 inch must be from a species endemic to the UK: the Partially Metricated Spider.:roll:

[Soapy Sam]

Euro-spiders have ten legs.

[T'ai Chi]

I had a large spider appear in the car while I was driving yesterday. My reaction was to bat it away, which I did, but then I lost track of it, which made it absolutely worse.

A leaf blew in the window from the side and touched my arm which made me all twitchy, lol

[fabian_lidman]

I recently went for a walk on a nice peninsula near a nuclear power plant, and saw the most MASSIVE spiders i've ever seen in scandinavia. They had a huge body, hairy legs and a very graphic multi-colored back.
Must have been radioactive mutant mega-spiders.

[andyandy]

am i right that spiders form the number 1 "irrational" fear - (certainly irrational in the UK anyway....)?

I've been told a couple of reasons for this....

one is that we grew up in the plains of africa, living outdoors and vulnerable to some very poisonous spiders....and so early humans learned to fear spiders....and this has been passed on biologically to us house dwellers in London.....

another reason i was told regards our experiences as babies - apparently we swallow a number of spiders in our lifetimes....whilst asleep of course......but such experiences for a baby can happen whilst conscious - because they're pretty helpless lumps....:D And it's this trauma that leads some people to have an irrational fear of spiders.....

now....i've absolutely no idea on the scientific consensus on this subject - so i'd be pretty interested to know - why am i scared ****less of a creature many times smaller than me, non-aggressive, likely to run away if i approach, and completely harmless??:eek:

[Ryan O'Dine]

My mother got bitten by a brown recluse spider when we lived in Texas. They are real small and have a small violin shaped mark on them. They are the second most poisenous spider in the US and are more common than the Black Widow. She had to have a whole cut in her leg where the doctors pulled out dead tissue. The process was repeated. It sucked. I hate spiders but wow are they amazing!
I live in the frigid northeast (US), and a few years ago a woman had to be treated in the hospital in much the same way. Brown recluses aren’t indigenous -- apparently, the thing hitched a ride on a package she received through the mail.

I don’t know why people mess with anthrax.

[Polaris]

am i right that spiders form the number 1 "irrational" fear - (certainly irrational in the UK anyway....)?

I've been told a couple of reasons for this....

one is that we grew up in the plains of africa, living outdoors and vulnerable to some very poisonous spiders....and so early humans learned to fear spiders....and this has been passed on biologically to us house dwellers in London.....

another reason i was told regards our experiences as babies - apparently we swallow a number of spiders in our lifetimes....whilst asleep of course......but such experiences for a baby can happen whilst conscious - because they're pretty helpless lumps....:D And it's this trauma that leads some people to have an irrational fear of spiders.....

now....i've absolutely no idea on the scientific consensus on this subject - so i'd be pretty interested to know - why am i scared ****less of a creature many times smaller than me, non-aggressive, likely to run away if i approach, and completely harmless??:eek:

But then again, the spider is seen in some African religions as a goddess - Anansi. So the progression of that myth is possibly one where good became evil in the same way that snakes were revered in one culture but hated in another tradition. I don't think it's a coincidence that snakes and spiders are two of the most phobic of creatures. Wolf spiders can give a painful bite, I'm told - but I've never been bitten myself. If you're gentle, you can pick them up without any problem. I've done this many times, having found large ones under rocks next to ponds. They are very excitable, panic-aholics, and I certainly wouldn't recommend doing what I do, as I probably just never got what I deserved. But I much prefer a spider in the house to a wasp. I don't even throw them outside when I see them. They eat the flies.

That brown recluse isn't as small as you'd think, but it is a bit smaller than the black widow - the problem with both of them is that they tend to be hidden (here's the part where I'm going to scare the crap out of you arachniphobes), in problematic places like shoes and gloves. I've seen them both at zoos and herpetariums - the recluse is about 5CM from leg-tip to leg-tip if my memory is correct, but they're hard to spot in natural settings. Black widow was easily 7.5CM leg to leg, if not more. The first one I saw (in an exhibit at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum) was much bigger than I expected, and is unmistakable. There are smaller shiny black spiders that somewhat resemble the widow, and I'm sure plenty are crushed due to mistaken identity. But there are also immature widows that are white and kinda psychedelic in color. I see them all the time. Here's a link:

http://kaweahoaks.com/html/latrodectus_hesoerus.html

Insecticides apparently work on widows, I might add.

As for the eating of spiders in our sleep, it's BS. Here's a snopes.com take on it. http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.htm

I had wondered, how exactly do they know that? What sadistic lab-technician watched people in their sleep and didn't wake them up when spiders crawled in their mouths? And were these the small, spindly kind you find making cobwebs on BBQ grills and picnic tables, or do people occasionally cruch on a tarantula in the middle of the night to skew the average (I would imagine one tarantula would still count as just one spider)? Enough people are arachniphobes that it doesn't surprise me how many people think this is fact.

[SteveGrenard]

am i right that spiders form the number 1 "irrational" fear - (certainly irrational in the UK anyway....)?

I've been told a couple of reasons for this....

one is that we grew up in the plains of africa, living outdoors and vulnerable to some very poisonous spiders....and so early humans learned to fear spiders....and this has been passed on biologically to us house dwellers in London.....

another reason i was told regards our experiences as babies - apparently we swallow a number of spiders in our lifetimes....whilst asleep of course......but such experiences for a baby can happen whilst conscious - because they're pretty helpless lumps....:D And it's this trauma that leads some people to have an irrational fear of spiders.....

now....i've absolutely no idea on the scientific consensus on this subject - so i'd be pretty interested to know - why am i scared ****less of a creature many times smaller than me, non-aggressive, likely to run away if i approach, and completely harmless??:eek:

Congratulations you are a certified arachnophobe! You have arachnophobia and it is irrational although spiders do cause necrotic arachnidism: Necrotic (=death of tissue) arachnidism (=caused by a spider). Most cases of tissue lesions causing necrosis are blamed on spiders even when there is no evidence that a spider was involved. If you have the spider (dead or alive) and know it's the cause then you can be sure it caused the tissue lesions you are suffering. No venomous spider bite in the U.S. is universally fatal in of itself including that of the black widow (Latrodectus) but it is extremely painful.

In Australia doctors blame necrotic lesions on the white-tailed spider but toxin experts down under say this is not true. The same type of mythos exists in the U.S. with the brown recluse.

Spiders are handy to have around. They eat other bugs including serious indoor pests such as ants and roaches as well as garden pests that destroy vegetation. We need more spiders, nature's exterminator.

As far as phobias is concerned snakes and spiders probably tie each other for the#1 spot. Personally I am scared of sharks. Chimps allegedly also have an inherent fear of snakes. They will hoot and scream even at the sight of a snake-like length of rope.

[Rob Lister]

My mother got bitten by a brown recluse spider when we lived in Texas. They are real small and have a small violin shaped mark on them. They are the second most poisenous spider in the US and are more common than the Black Widow. She had to have a whole cut in her leg where the doctors pulled out dead tissue. The process was repeated. It sucked. I hate spiders but wow are they amazing!

I spent the better part of a week in a hospital because of a BR bite. After 30-odd years, there's hardly much of a scar left, mentally that is.

I don't fear spiders so much as I find then icky and...makes me shake my arms and wrists like a girl.

[Rob Lister]

In Australia doctors blame necrotic lesions on the white-tailed spider but toxin experts down under say this is not true. The same type of mythos exists in the U.S. with the brown recluse.

I can only tell you what the doctor (a specialist) said. He was called in special just for little-ol' me! He recognized it within a second or two and spent an agonizing fifteen minutes probing the overly sensitive (and growing) wound just to make his displeasure at travaling 300 miles known at least to me.

[SteveGrenard]

I can only tell you what the doctor (a specialist) said. He was called in special just for little-ol' me! He recognized it within a second or two and spent an agonizing fifteen minutes probing the overly sensitive (and growing) wound just to make his displeasure at travaling 300 miles known at least to me.

If it happened suddenly and you felt a jab and better yet saw or killed the spider, it would be a better diagnosis. But a lot of patients show up with necrotic lesions which are due to bacteria getting into a tiny puncture wound made by something other than a spider and spiders get blamed. There is no way anyone can tell if your lesion was caused by a spider or something else otherwise (just by looking at it) ...and if you don't know yourself. The treatment for a necrotic skin lesion and necrotic arachnidism is the same. Culture, antibiotics, debridement or surgery to clean it out if its bad ....the fact that it was spreading quickly over
15 minutes indicates envenomation though.

[Rob Lister]

If it happened suddenly and you felt a jab and better yet saw or killed the spider, it would be a better diagnosis. But a lot of patients show up with necrotic lesions which are due to bacteria getting into a tiny puncture wound made by something other than a spider and spiders get blamed. There is no way anyone can tell if your lesion was caused by a spider or something else otherwise (just by looking at it) ...and if you don't know yourself. The treatment for a necrotic skin lesion and necrotic arachnidism is the same. Culture, antibiotics, debridement or surgery to clean it out if its bad ....the fact that it was spreading quickly over
15 minutes indicates envenomation though.

Okay, okay, I believe you. My circumstances were feeling a tiny byte (like a horsefly) whilst putting on my boot. I thought nothing of it. The next day my foot was a bit swollen, especially around an absess on the upper instep. I thought nothing of it. The next day I could barely walk and the wound had grown to size of a dime. I thought of it but tried a little self help. The next day it was the size of a quarter. I waited another day before going to the doctor. He checked me into the emergency room telling me I might lose my whole leg if I refused.

[SteveGrenard]

When my son was small my wife and I took him to see Charlotte's Web. They have recently filmed a remake of this classic using live actors. It stars Dakota Fanning. I think this would be great for kids of all ages. It will be out this Xmas:

http://www.charlotteswebmovie.com/site/index.php

[SteveGrenard]

Okay, okay, I believe you. My circumstances were feeling a tiny byte (like a horsefly) whilst putting on my boot. I thought nothing of it. The next day my foot was a bit swollen, especially around an absess on the upper instep. I thought nothing of it. The next day I could barely walk and the wound had grown to size of a dime. I thought of it but tried a little self help. The next day it was the size of a quarter. I waited another day before going to the doctor. He checked me into the emergency room telling me I might lose my whole leg if I refused.

well there's no evidence then that a spider caused the breech which allowed bacteria to work its way under your skin and begin the process of necrotizing fasciitis. It could've been but it could've been a lot of other things as well. And yes this condition could have resulted in amputation and eventually death if you declined treatment by this time. Blaming a spider by eyeballing the lesion after 2 to 4 days is speculation.



http://www.nnff.org/

Necrotizing fasciitis (NF) is a bacterial infection. This bacteria attacks the soft tissue and the fascia, which is a sheath of tissue covering the muscle. NF can occur in an extremity following a minor trauma, or after some other type of opportunity for the bacteria to enter the body such as surgery.

The Group A Strep infection (flesh eating bacteria) is most common with minor trauma. A mixed bacterial infection is often the cause after surgery.

We can personally tell you about people who developed NF after a C-section, after abdominal surgery, after scratching a rash, after giving birth vaginally, from a tiny scratch, after bumping a leg with a golf bag, after a friendly punch in the arm from a buddy, after a little cut on the finger, after a cut on the foot, after a rug burn, after having a routine blood draw in a physical exam, after a broken arm, and after a broken leg, and from no known trauma at all.

[Rob Lister]

Dude, I said I believed you!

Still, like keeping mayo in the cupboard instead of the fridge, I'll maintain my suspision of spiders.

A tiny one jumped and bit me on the eyebrow last year. Swelled to a pimple. Little bastard. I was content to leave it be. I smacked myself right in the face to kill it. I smacked me HARD!

I showed him.

[Yuri Nalyssus]

Could've been worse, could've been this guy:
http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/page/i-1746.jpg
He must have been trying to catch time flies (groan).

Yuri

[Bob Klase]

I managed to trap the spider and flush it down the toilet after spending half an hour spraying it with Fly Killer which just seemed to annoy it and certainly didn't kill it or appear to harm it.

Once before I found an even larger spider in my house which I crushed.

Ant, fly and roach killing sprays generally don't seem to work well on spiders. But you can buy Spider Killer. The advantage to a spray vs crushing a spider is that if you try to crush a pregnant spider it can release hundreds of baby spiders- you'll never crush them all before they get away. The spray kills them as they come out.

[Strider1974]

Nobody - You would love the Sydney Funnel Web Spider.
This is one of Australia's most famous and venomous spiders.

At night during the mating season the male spiders go looking for females. When the night is over they simply find the closest dark corner and go to sleep. Since shoes make a perfect bed you learn to check them before putting them on especially since the males are aggressive and will attack if threatened.
http://www.usq.edu.au/users/weppner/...web_spider.htm
http://www.csiro.au/csiro/content/standard/ps1o3,,.html

I am not afraid of spiders but try tipping a large male funnel web out of your shoe in the morning and have it rear up and threaten you - its a good way to wake up in a hurry

[Meffy]

The advantage to a spray vs crushing a spider is that if you try to crush a pregnant spider it can release hundreds of baby spiders- you'll never crush them all before they get away. The spray kills them as they come out.
As they jump off, actually -- that would be a mother carrying babies on her body. Spiders hatch from eggs, don't get pregnant. :-) Wolf spiders do the baby-toting thing. Harmless, far as I know, but not the prettiest things.

A black widow bit me when I was very young. The skin on my arm turned blue-black for quite a ways 'round, and it hurt like the dickens. But it got better after a while. Nowadays I get bitten by a black widow every couple years; they hang around our shed and near the outside faucets. Just makes a little bluish spot and stings for a while.

Concerning Anansi, I've encountered him as a male god, and not a very "good" one. :-} Anansi is a trickster, like Coyote in some Native American lore. For a particularly weird (and pleasantly short) tale of Anansi check out the Hat Shaking Dance:

http://jeffcoweb.jeffco.k12.co.us/passport/lessonplan/lessons/trickster.html

I think the same character is sometimes called "Aunt Nancy."

[Hamradioguy]

We occationally get these
pretties (http://bugguide.net/node/view/44000/bgpage) in the basement.


Dang, I thought Vermont was essentially free of things like this. ( Thay one in the photo could make it to my place in a couple of days. ) Gotta think about a move still further north. i'd take a polar bear over a spider any day.

[SteveGrenard]

Dang, I thought Vermont was essentially free of things like this. ( Thay one in the photo could make it to my place in a couple of days. ) Gotta think about a move still further north. i'd take a polar bear over a spider any day.

This spider is harmless to people .... it looks worse than it is which is why spiders are perceived as scary.

[Rob Lister]

Why are they so...icky!

The only thing that even comes close is a roach.

well, I take that back...a roach is worse. an spider or two doesn't bother me but if I see a roach I get out the bug spray and call an exterminator the very next day.

[joe87]

It appears that most of the posters here don't live in Australia, which has some deadly spiders. The Sydney funnel web (http://www.usyd.edu.au/anaes/venom/spiders.html#FUNNELWEB) spider bites repeatedly.
http://www.termite.com/images/funnelwebmaleani.gif
Before an effective antivenom was developed, significant bites usually resulted in severe symptoms and death was not uncommon.
They also have a lot of very nasty snakes. Aracnophobes and Ophidophobes should live somewhere else.

[Zep]

FYI, the Australian Redback spider (http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/redback.htm) is a very close relative to the Black Widow.

And not only the Funnel-web here in Sydney, we also have the lovely Trapdoor spider (http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/trapdoor_spiders.htm), and the Mouse spider (http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/mouse_spider.htm) (often mistake for a Trapdoor, and just as nasty). Interestingly, bth these spiders can swim...

The ones we see mostly in the garden are Orb spiders (http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/orb_weaving_spiders.htm), which make big, beautiful webs in the plants. They are typically Australian - prefer to lie around in the sun all day, and would not to bite anything that isn't food.

The reality here on the ground is that you rarely, if ever, encounter dangerous spiders (or snakes for that matter) in your garden or home. They're usually there, but they do not attack animals bigger than themselves unless actively provoked. They much prefer to disappear down their burrows, etc, until us humans have gone. Children are taught from a young age to just not touch ANY spiders at all.

[Polaris]

FYI, the Australian Redback spider (http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/redback.htm) is a very close relative to the Black Widow.

And not only the Funnel-web here in Sydney, we also have the lovely Trapdoor spider (http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/trapdoor_spiders.htm), and the Mouse spider (http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/mouse_spider.htm) (often mistake for a Trapdoor, and just as nasty). Interestingly, bth these spiders can swim...

The ones we see mostly in the garden are Orb spiders (http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/orb_weaving_spiders.htm), which make big, beautiful webs in the plants. They are typically Australian - prefer to lie around in the sun all day, and would not to bite anything that isn't food.

The reality here on the ground is that you rarely, if ever, encounter dangerous spiders (or snakes for that matter) in your garden or home. They're usually there, but they do not attack animals bigger than themselves unless actively provoked. They much prefer to disappear down their burrows, etc, until us humans have gone. Children are taught from a young age to just not touch ANY spiders at all.

We've got those orb spiders here too, in the US. I used to watch one make its web every night when I was a guard in a gatehouse. Had them all around a valley below my house in the WV countryside - what was nice was that they were big and brightly colored, so you didn't accidentally walk face-first into one of their webs (which, in the morning, were dew-covered and could be seen a few hundred yards away).

[Strider1974]

Zep - good call. In last post I was trying to scare and it has only happened to me once - not that I will ever forget.

Have you seen the BBC documentary "Life In The Undergrowth"
One episode deals with the web spinners and has a very interesting piece on the red back spider.

Quote for the day
Arachnoleptic fit - The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Arachnoleptic+fit

[SPQR]

Several years ago, one of my dad's co-workers brought in his pet tarantula to show off. Soemhow, the "pet" managed to escape its box and proceeded to explore my dad's office. As my dad walks in, he sees this humongous arachnid making its way across the floor.

Now normally, my dad would have quickly destroyed such a large spider, but he new that a co-worker of his had brought in his pet tarantula so he placed a small waste-paper basket over the spider and went to get the animal's owner.

When he returned, he found the waste-paper basket slowly moving across the floor. While the spider's owner found this incredibly cool, my dad found it somewhat less amusing and kindly requested the spider be removed.

[Aepervius]

Today I found a spider in my house that I think was too large and hideous to be a British species. It's body was about 1cm in diameter, it had legs just over an inch long and was a brown suede colour and hairy. It had large black fangs and eyes.
[...]

Comments ?

I live in germany and find such a big spider on regular basis (1 per 3-4 monthes). Not two weeks ago my cat was trying to play with one which had more than 1 cm in diameter and more than 8-9 cm counting leg.

Now I fully understand the joy of living near a big forrest...

ETA: the small one I usually never find, because, you know, they are such a cut toy for my cat... Ditto for fly and other flying insects.

[JamesM]

another reason i was told regards our experiences as babies - apparently we swallow a number of spiders in our lifetimes....whilst asleep of course
do you really believe this, though? I mean, I've heard this factoid too, but it's clearly ludicrous.

[Yuri Nalyssus]

do you really believe this, though? I mean, I've heard this factoid too, but it's clearly ludicrous.
Loud tsk - we've done that one - see http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.htm and post 18.

Yuri

[chance]

If one is contemplating a trip to Australia then I would like to put all arachnephobia distress in perspective – Spiders are slow, and consequently highly venomous snakes have eaten most of them, and what the snakes missed, the crocodiles got. :)

[JamesM]

Loud tsk - we've done that one - see http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.htm and post 18.

Yuri

oh yeah, oops. sorry.

[luchog]

Could be a common House spider (http://www.arkive.org/species/ARK/invertebrates_terrestrial_and_freshwater/Tegenaria_domestica/) or Wolf spider (http://www.arkive.org/species/ARK/invertebrates_terrestrial_and_freshwater/Pardosa_amentata/). Both are common in the UK, and are brown with bodies up to 1cm long.

Of the House Spider, the ARKive article says:
More:

http://www.kendall-bioresearch.co.uk/spider.htm
The problem with this is that there is an increasingly popular spider known as the Hobo Spider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo_spider). This is a hitchhiker that is very hardy and has been found in quite a number of locations worldwide, including mine, which has no native venomous spiders. They closely resemble the common house spider. Though bites are not typically fatal, they can be dangerous for those in poor health, or with allergies; as well as blood poisoning from untreated/poorly treated bites. And the necrosis is very nasty and painful. I have a friend who had an ulcer on her leg for well over a month after being bitten by one.

Fortunately, they don't compete well with native spiders; and if you have plenty of visible house spiders, chances are very small that there are any hobos nearby.

[Zep]

If one is contemplating a trip to Australia then I would like to put all arachnephobia distress in perspective – Spiders are slow, and consequently highly venomous snakes have eaten most of them, and what the snakes missed, the crocodiles got. :)Of course, the sharks keep the croc populations down to reasonable size... ;)

[WanderinWTF]

I am not generally scared of normal spiders ie the kind that live in north western Europe but I can't stand the giant poisonous Australian things.

Today I found a spider in my house that I think was too large and hideous to be a British species. It's body was about 1cm in diameter, it had legs just over an inch long and was a brown suede colour and hairy. It had large black fangs and eyes.

The thing is a relation of mine who also lives in my house was in the merchant navy up until 2 years ago and has travelled just about everywhere in the world. Would it be possible that a spider or two from say Australia or Mexico managed to get into his luggage and escaped into a warm cupboard in my house where it is protected from the British winters ?

I managed to trap the spider and flush it down the toilet after spending half an hour spraying it with Fly Killer which just seemed to annoy it and certainly didn't kill it or appear to harm it.

Once before I found an even larger spider in my house which I crushed.

Comments ?



Next time you should use wasp killer, they seem to work the best plus you can spray from pretty far away.

Kinda sounds like a brown recluise. Someone once told me that the worst thing you can do to somebody is let a brown recluise loose in someones house hoping they would get bit. I hope you have noone jealous of you that would do such a thing.

[Tirdun]

Dang, I thought Vermont was essentially free of things like this. ( Thay one in the photo could make it to my place in a couple of days. ) Gotta think about a move still further north. i'd take a polar bear over a spider any day. :D

There are also fishing spiders and nursery spiders. They're closely related and can get as big as your hand. You're on the far northern edge for these (I believe) but you might get a big lovelorn male in the late summer. Fishing spiders will be more common near water (hence the name) and you'll spot them near piers and sheds. Nursery spiders aren't as big, but once they get to be a certain size a cm here and there seems to make little difference for phobics.

My son has inherited spider-smooshing duties for anything smaller than a penny. We also get wood beetles and cave crickets, which fall under his watch. This lessens my duties, but any time I hear my name yelled across the house I wonder what breed of monster I'm going to have to capture or kill.

[Meffy]

any time I hear my name yelled across the house I wonder what breed of monster I'm going to have to capture or kill.
You know you've got a tough one when it keeps a hoard of gold and treasures behind its web.

[Segnosaur]

I managed to trap the spider and flush it down the toilet after spending half an hour spraying it with Fly Killer which just seemed to annoy it and certainly didn't kill it or appear to harm it.


When I find a spider in my house, I get out the old Shop vac and suck him up.

Then, just in case its still alive, I vaccum up some unpopped popcorn kernels to pummel it to death while its in the bag.

Am I overreacting?

[Serenity]

My home is crawling with Yellow-Sac spiders (http://lancaster.unl.edu/enviro/pest/Articles/YellowSacSpiders.htm). They hang out mostly on the walls and ceilings but every so often I find them on the bed, couch, counters, etc...

I've since pulled the furniture away from the walls and that seems to have helped. The bed incident really freaked me out knowing that many bites occur when the spider gets trapped in your clothing or bed sheets.

[SPQR]

Does anyone else think spiders are beautiful and not gross at all? Has anyone else simply watched a spider move for an extended period of time? I certainly hope I'm not alone in this behavior.

Whenever I find one in my house I gently push it into a Dixie cup and deposite it outside. Granted, most of the spiders I find are less than an inch long. :rolleyes: But even then, I wouldn't kill it outright.

[rjh01]

I was brought up not to kill spiders. They kill flys and other bad insects. So if you kill spiders you allow several flys to live.

Your choice.

[Roboramma]

When I was growing up I had a room in the basement of our house. There were lots of friendly little spiders in there. They were really lazy, though - all they'd do is build a web in a corner and then just sit there all the time. Sometimes they'd crawl along the ceiling, or maybe hang a little ways down from it by a strand of web, but that's about it.
I liked watching them. Once I saw them doing what seemed to be spider-sex, though I couldn't be sure. That freaked me out a little, but for the most part I liked them. The centipedes, however, I killed without mercy.

[chance]

I was brought up not to kill spiders. They kill flys and other bad insects. So if you kill spiders you allow several flys to live.

Your choice.

Interestingly, my father once told me that it was ‘bad luck” to kill a spider …….. indeed not only for the spider but for the killee. Just getting in early :)

Anyone else heard of this superstition. (Dads from the UK).

[bluess]

I don't mind the little ones much. I generally shoo them out of the way or let the cats eat them. Well, not the little black ones that look like tarantulas, because they make cats vomit. And any of the little ones that end up in the bathtub go down the drain.

But the big, hairy wolf spiders that leer at you with all their little eyespots and don't make webs, EEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!

[Meffy]

I like most spiders. I just coax them up onto my paw to take outside, don't bother with a cup unless they're fast and/or jumpy. Some are beautiful, like the small black hunter-pouncers with brilliant metallic green palps and eyes... or the late-summer garden spiders, brilliantly patterened spinners of huge orb webs. Even boring little mouse-brown house cobs help keep the insect population down, so I leave some in place.

[Polaris]

I like most spiders. I just coax them up onto my paw to take outside, don't bother with a cup unless they're fast and/or jumpy. Some are beautiful, like the small black hunter-pouncers with brilliant metallic green palps and eyes... or the late-summer garden spiders, brilliantly patterened spinners of huge orb webs. Even boring little mouse-brown house cobs help keep the insect population down, so I leave some in place.

I don't even put them outside. I just let them be, and try to watch out for where I'm stepping if i see one when I'm watching TV or something.

[Polaris]

The problem with this is that there is an increasingly popular spider known as the Hobo Spider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo_spider). This is a hitchhiker that is very hardy and has been found in quite a number of locations worldwide, including mine, which has no native venomous spiders. They closely resemble the common house spider. Though bites are not typically fatal, they can be dangerous for those in poor health, or with allergies; as well as blood poisoning from untreated/poorly treated bites. And the necrosis is very nasty and painful. I have a friend who had an ulcer on her leg for well over a month after being bitten by one.

Fortunately, they don't compete well with native spiders; and if you have plenty of visible house spiders, chances are very small that there are any hobos nearby.

That hobo spider looks and sounds an awful lot like a brown recluse.

[luchog]

That hobo spider looks and sounds an awful lot like a brown recluse.
There are some distinct similarities. Hobo spiders tend to be smaller and darker than the recluse, lacking the distinctive markings, and are native to Europe, while the recluse is native to North America. They are similarly venomous, and prefer similar habitats. They also tend to be more aggressive than recluse spiders, particularly if protecting eggs The name "brown recluce" has been used for hobo spiders at times, however, because of the close similarity.

[Polaris]

There are some distinct similarities. Hobo spiders tend to be smaller and darker than the recluse, lacking the distinctive markings, and are native to Europe, while the recluse is native to North America. They are similarly venomous, and prefer similar habitats. They also tend to be more aggressive than recluse spiders, particularly if protecting eggs The name "brown recluce" has been used for hobo spiders at times, however, because of the close similarity.

Yeah, but the body style does look very similar. My guess is they're related.

[tygirwulf]

I remember, a few years ago while staying at my dad's house, I woke up each morning with itchy red bites on me, one as high up as my collarbones. I gained 7 of them over the course of my stay. A few days later, the bites popped open and started oozing clear orange fluid before scabbing up.

A few weeks later while at my dad's place again, I was playing a game with my brother, when he suddenly hopped up off the couch, (which I slept on during my visits) grabbed my shoe and started slapping it around. He showed me what it was he killed; a small fuzzy black spider, one of the ones that likes to jump and dart around erratically. Being an arachnaphobe, this freaked me out to no end. I'm glad they don't live in the woods anymore.

Another time in high school Spanish class, the teacher suddenly stopped what she was saying in the middle of a sentence while she was looking my direction. After a couple of seconds, I looked around me at the other students and noticed everyone was looking at me. Feeling a sense of foreboding, I ducked my head down and slid out of my seat. When I had stood up and turned around, I saw that a spider larger than I'd like to think about (at least 3 inches tip to tip) was slowly lowering itself on silk thread, and it was about where my head had been only seconds earlier. I was later told it was a water spider, but I don't understand why it was living above the drop ceiling of a school.

Are there spiders that imitate a black widow? Or maybe different types of them? I've heard their bodies are about the size of a penny or a thumbnail, but the ones I've seen are quite a bit bigger, about an inch and a half long, not including legs.

The image of a spider carrying hundreds of spiderlings on her body is a pleasant image that will keep me up the rest of the night. Thank you. :p

[Meffy]

The black widows I've seen had abdomens around 6 to 8 mm across -- 1/4 to 1/3 inch. They like to build their thin, amorphous webs around where I'm likely to be... near an outdoor faucet, in the tool shed... oh well, no worse than bee stings to me.

[edit] Not all black widows have a "red hourglass" pattern on the underside of their abdomens. Sometimes it's yellow, and the shape can vary. Sometimes it's just a few dots.

[Meffy]

I don't even put them outside. I just let them be, and try to watch out for where I'm stepping if i see one when I'm watching TV or something.
I would do that too, but our kittens (pets, not offspring) won't leave spiders to themselves. :-}

[SteveGrenard]

This Brown Recluse Bite Photo series may be a hoax......

http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/brownrecluse.asp


to which Rick Vetter, a brown recluse expert, writes: (go to his website below)
Please forward this response to anyone who is persisting in sending these pictures around the internet.....


The alleged brown-recluse-caused thumb wound

Another Internet Spider Hoax?

I have recently received many emails regarding an alleged brown recluse spider bite to a thumb. Here is my response. Here is my response.

I have received this set of images from many people starting in June 2003. It is possible that this is a recluse bite however, the stories surrounding this series of images are starting to acquire the makings of an urban legend. I have now heard that this wound supposedly was a recluse bite that occurred at a military base in Missouri, in Wisconsin, Texas, Montana, Ohio, California, Alberta Canada, Costa Rica and supposedly was a hobo spider bite in British Columbia. Obviously, this one series of pictures cannot be a recluse bite in all of these places so one should REALLY question the validity of this information that is circulating. Unfortunately, I have heard that readily-accepting people are using these images for presentations in paramedic classes etc. which may be spreading misinformation rather than educating people. The picture of the spider itself is not of the spider that caused the wound but is a stock photo from an Ohio university website. This image was used in 2002 in a very hyperbolic news story in Long Island. Although it is possible that this is a recluse bite, no one can seem to verify where the alleged bite occurred, whether a spider was caught in the act of biting or at the scene of the crime, whether the victim was tested for additional etiologic agents of necrosis such as bacterial infection, if a doctor actually made the diagnosis or it was a self-diagnosis from the victim, if the diagnosis came from an area of the country that actually has brown recluses, etc.

However, the main effect that this set of images will have is to cause paranoia in the non-arachnological public, bring out all the "hell, yeah" stories of people who have some alleged brown recluse story and will proliferate once again the hyperbolic message about recluses. One of the forms of this series that I saw was a statement something like, "warn people - save a life". Once again, hyperbole. I have recently added a webpage to my spiders.ucr.edu website lifting quotes from an article by Phillip Anderson, a Missouri dermatologist who specialized on brown recluse bites for over 30 years. Basically here is a summary from his article and several since then by other authors.


<LI class=MsoNormal>Almost all brown recluse bites heal very nicely without medical intervention.
<LI class=MsoNormal>Only 3% of brown recluse bites require skin grafts.
<LI class=MsoNormal>Despite the fact that lots of people believe that brown recluses are deadly, there are only about 8 reported deaths from possible brown recluse bites in the medical literature, Philip Anderson states that there is still not one VERIFIED death from a brown recluse bite and none of the alleged fatal cases are convincing.
Often physicians will make a recluse bite worse by going in and messing with it by removing tissue and that outcome for most recluse bite situations is very promising with general care. One condition of skin necrosis, pyoderma gangrenosum, definitely gets worse when tissue is removed.
I get lots of people contacting me stating that their doctors diagnosed them with recluse bites and then gave antibiotics. Although antibiotics are not a bad idea overall, they do nothing to counteract the effects of venom. Antibiotics kill bacteria. The correct treatment for recluse bites is simply RICE therapy (rest, ice, compression and elevation). So therefore when a doctor prescribes antibiotics for a “brown recluse bite”, the doctor is either treating it like a bacterial infection or prescribing the incorrect remedy.

The analogy I like to use with these images is that of a car accident. If you show a car wreck where the driver was going 130 miles an hour and then hit a bridge, the car would be totally wrecked into dozens of twisted pieces, body parts strewn all over the place and it would be horrendous. If people reacted to this the way they are reacting to the thumb picture, then they would make the assumption that every car wreck is just as catastrophic, cars are to be feared and no one should ever drive because they will end up obliterated across two counties. However, we all know that many car accidents are just bumper scrapers or fenderbenders, more serious accidents involve broken windows and minor injuries, even more serious and lesser common accidents involve smashed up cars and broken bones and maybe death. Similar to recluse bites, most bites are minor and heal by themselves, some are more serious and require more healing time and leave a scar, even more serious and less common bites require extensive supportive medical care and possibly skin grafts. However, the typical case for a brown recluse bite is minor in effect and prospects for healing are excellent.

One of the very real problems with recluse bites (and any arthropod bite for that matter) is that the bite causes itching, the victim scratches, introduces a secondary bacterial infection from grungy fingernails and such, a horrific wound shows up and then the wound is solely blamed on the arthropod when the real culprit is the bite victim him/herself. Additionally, besides horrific lesions being very rare in recluse bite situations, horrific recluse-induced wounds are typically found in obese people because recluse venom really melts away adipose tissue. It does very little damage in muscular tissue. This wound is on the hand of a person who does not look obese as well as the hand is not an area of the body with lots of adipose tissue in comparison to the stomach and buttocks where most of the wounds in the obese occur. So, this is one strong argument against this injury being a recluse bite and therefore, possibly having a different causative agent.

So the final summary on this is that if it indeed is a brown recluse bite, then it is truly one of the rare, horrific ones however, there is not sufficient information provided with this image to ascertain whether it is credible or not. Yes, indeed, it is a horrible wound but unless a spider was found in the act of biting, there is no more reason to assume that this is a brown recluse bite than to assume that it is necrotizing bacteria or pyoderma gangrenosum or several other medical afflictions that manifest in the dermatologic eruption that can occur. And a recent article of mine shows how unlikely recluse bites are: a family in Kansas collected over two thousand brown recluses in 6 months, have been living there for 7 years and still have shown no evidence of a bite. This latter message is rarely advertised by the hyperbolic news media or the easily-scared general public because people have a tendency to overreact and want to believe the worse about a situation.

Please send this message back to whomever sent you the thumb images. Below my name is a list of my brown recluse publications, most of them in medical journals.

Rick Vetter
Entomology
Univ. Calif. Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521

Richard S. Vetter

http://spiders.ucr.edu/hyperbole2003.html (http://spiders.ucr.edu/hyperbole2003.html)

[Zep]

Heh! With all this talk of nasty US spiders living in shoes and clothes, perhaps people won't go on so about those in Australia living in the bush... :D

[Polaris]

Heh! With all this talk of nasty US spiders living in shoes and clothes, perhaps people won't go on so about those in Australia living in the bush... :D

I'll keep the black widows over your funnel webs any day!

[athon]

I love spiders, and have no fear of them. Stupidly, as I've learned. I moved a pot-plant one day (many years ago) by grabbing the rim and pulling it. I could feel cobweb under it and I remember thinking 'This is kind of silly, putting my fingers under here'. Lo, 'twas kind of daft. I got bitten by a red-back spider on the hand. Christ, did it hurt!

Now I just kick pot-plants into place.

I've seen the odd trap-door and a couple of funnelwebs in my time. They're moving further north, with the occasional one turning up in Brisbane over the years. You'd think they'd make themselves useful and eat all the fireants, but nooo...

Athon

[Polaris]

I love spiders, and have no fear of them. Stupidly, as I've learned. I moved a pot-plant one day (many years ago) by grabbing the rim and pulling it. I could feel cobweb under it and I remember thinking 'This is kind of silly, putting my fingers under here'. Lo, 'twas kind of daft. I got bitten by a red-back spider on the hand. Christ, did it hurt!

Now I just kick pot-plants into place.

I've seen the odd trap-door and a couple of funnelwebs in my time. They're moving further north, with the occasional one turning up in Brisbane over the years. You'd think they'd make themselves useful and eat all the fireants, but nooo...

Athon

I like them too - doesn't mean I don't steer clear of ones that could cause serious harm. I also like tigers, but I avoid them too on similar grounds.

[Dark Jaguar]

I can say right now that while something like a religious mythology can be reasoned away, irrational fears are a different beast. You can know intellectually that spiders aren't a threat, but unlike my experiences with religion, even after accepting that all you need do is encounter one for instinct to take over.

And further, I should note that I actually have memories of myself as a child having NO fear of the creepy crawlies. I played with bugs all the time. Only ones I feared were those that hurt me physically at some point and then all it was was a respectful treatment of bees and the like. Unfortunatly, due to the "shotgun hole" like nature of my childhood memories, I can't honestly state any specific "turning point" where I became petrified by the little things. I can say this. My fear isn't the physical harm, that's for sure, because those things that can harm me I treat a lot different than those that can't and I recognize the difference. No, it seems my major fear is the INSIDES of the creatures, which is to say, I have an immense fear of killing them (no I'm not some great person because of that, it has nothing to do with guilt as you'll soon see) and getting their guts on me, or having to see or know that a dead thing is nearby. So as a result if it is in a position where it is far more likely that I will squish it I get a far worse case of the jibblies than otherwise.

Squishing insects to get rid of them isn't an option. Flushing is though :D.

[Polaris]

I can say right now that while something like a religious mythology can be reasoned away, irrational fears are a different beast. You can know intellectually that spiders aren't a threat, but unlike my experiences with religion, even after accepting that all you need do is encounter one for instinct to take over.

And further, I should note that I actually have memories of myself as a child having NO fear of the creepy crawlies. I played with bugs all the time. Only ones I feared were those that hurt me physically at some point and then all it was was a respectful treatment of bees and the like. Unfortunatly, due to the "shotgun hole" like nature of my childhood memories, I can't honestly state any specific "turning point" where I became petrified by the little things. I can say this. My fear isn't the physical harm, that's for sure, because those things that can harm me I treat a lot different than those that can't and I recognize the difference. No, it seems my major fear is the INSIDES of the creatures, which is to say, I have an immense fear of killing them (no I'm not some great person because of that, it has nothing to do with guilt as you'll soon see) and getting their guts on me, or having to see or know that a dead thing is nearby. So as a result if it is in a position where it is far more likely that I will squish it I get a far worse case of the jibblies than otherwise.

Squishing insects to get rid of them isn't an option. Flushing is though :D.

All right, I'll buy that. But it is difficult to kill roaches and flies in any other way than physically annihilating them. Prevention is the best defense in this case.

[davefoc]

I recently went for a walk on a nice peninsula near a nuclear power plant, and saw the most MASSIVE spiders i've ever seen in scandinavia. They had a huge body, hairy legs and a very graphic multi-colored back.
Must have been radioactive mutant mega-spiders.

Radioactive mutant mega-spiders are generally over six feet tall and their limbs move like they're suspended by nylon fishing line. I believe they are usually seen near nuclear bomb test craters. Seeing them near a nuclear power plant sounds very unusual. I hope you took a picture.

[Polaris]

Radioactive mutant mega-spiders are generally over six feet tall and their limbs move like they're suspended by nylon fishing line. I believe they are usually seen near nuclear bomb test craters. Seeing them near a nuclear power plant sounds very unusual. I hope you took a picture.

One of them gave John Wayne cancer, I swear! :D

[SteveGrenard]

Here is a good site from UC Riverside on the Mythos surrounding Brown Recluse Spiders:

http://spiders.ucr.edu/