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....

[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 or Wolf spider. Both are common in the UK, and are brown with bodies up to 1cm long.

Of the House Spider, the ARKive article says:

Quote:

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 in the basement. They're either wolf spiders or "giant house spiders".


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]

Originally Posted by 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.

[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.... 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??

[Ryan O'Dine]

Originally Posted by 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!

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]

Originally Posted by 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.... 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??

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]

Originally Posted by 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.... 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??

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]

Originally Posted by 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!

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]

Originally Posted by SteveGrenard

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]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

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]

Originally Posted by SteveGrenard

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]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

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.

Quote:

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]

Originally Posted by Arkan_Wolfshade

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]

Originally Posted by Nobody

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]

Originally Posted by Bob Klase

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/pa...trickster.html

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

[Hamradioguy]

Originally Posted by Tirdun

We occationally get these
pretties 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]

Originally Posted by Hamradioguy

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 spider bites repeatedly.

Quote:

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 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, and the Mouse spider (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, 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]

Originally Posted by Zep

FYI, the Australian Redback spider 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, and the Mouse spider (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, 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/defin...chnoleptic+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]

Originally Posted by Nobody

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]

Originally Posted by andyandy

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.