Spiders, encounters, and horrifying experiences

okthksbutnthks

Finally! A subject I know something about! (As opposed to Scripting or Coding or How To Distill Fermented Prim Juice In Five Easy Steps.)

Sean, nice photo of what's called an Argiope! Those are some of the most beautiful (and gentle) spiders in the world ... (Easy rule-of-thumb: If it builds an ORB web, it's harmless.)

I've had a couple of tarantulas and a black widow as pets in RL, and currently own two species of scorpions and a tailless whipscorpion. Jumping spiders (family: salticidae) and orb weavers (such as Argiope) are always welcome in my house. As are Daddy Long-legs (which aren't spiders, precisely, but Harvestmen --- and more closely related to mites), because they can't even bite and (as Madame Maracas witnessed) sometimes engage in that fascinating-to-watch bouncing behavior.

And --- ah, hells, I could go on & on. So I'll spare all y'all good people and merely offer to provide, anytime I'm inworld and you want it, near-expert info and advice on all matters arachnid-related? Yes, that seems *slightly* less self-aggrandizing...

How do we keep the little bastards out of our ear at night!!!

I'm surprised that Memory Harker didn't point it out, but Hobo spiders are not native to the Pacific Northwest. They are native to Europe and were imported to America. They have no natural enemies in the U.S. which is why they are spreading so fast. An interesting side note, one of the main researchers of the Hobo spider has been missing for a few years. He is presumed kidnapped for unknown reasons. If you think you've seen a hobo spider outside of the known range, I'm sure there would be people interested in proof since it's an alien species that deserves tracking. You can probably find the appropriate info on hobospider.org. Chances are that all the way in NY it could just be a different funnel weaver, but who knows?

I've had a ton of arachnid encounters, but most of those stories involve scorpions. I lived for most of my life in an area full of scorpions (edwards aquifer contributing zone, hi Memory ), so they became a regular part of my life. Sure, we had black widows too, but I've seen way wayyyy more of those now that I live in LA (I even killed a black widow just last week in the bathroom).

The first story that comes to mind is when I was leaning up against a railing as a kid and noticed when I rubbed my arm that a little bit of blood came off on my hand so I looked down and saw two puncture wounds on my arm and what looked like a MASSIVE wolf spider, easily bigger than my palm, just sitting there next to my arm like "Move it, buddy, this is my rail!"

Here's a creepy one, but I don't know if it's a spider story or not for reasons you will see: I was driving through the desert at night and stopped at a gas station. I had to lie down on the ground to make sure no transmission fluid was leaking out because I'm the kind of person who will drive a couple thousand miles with a car problem if I can get someone I trust to fix it. Anyway, I got back in the car and it had been about ten minutes since I left the gas station. It was pitch black, near no cities, and it was late so there weren't that many cars on the road. Suddenly I became aware that something very large had just crawled off my jacket and onto my left cheek. I very calmly reached up, somehow clasped a large, fleshy, bug-like thing in my hand without crushing it but also without allowing it to move in my hand, rolled down the window and tossed it out. I have no idea what it was. Maybe a baby chupacabre?

Spiders (and even scorpions) aren't really a big deal once you've lived in a house where the attic is filled with a colony of territorial wasps who are all pissed off that it's 105 degrees outside and start coming through your ventilation system because the attic has gotten a little cramped for their torso-sized nest. In case you are wondering, they could chew through metal mesh.

I tend not to be too impressed with the Hobo; but only because, yes, it is a very dangerous creature ... but it pales in comparison to the Brown Recluse. (Just google up a few images of what the Recluse's necrotoxin --- with new & improved sphingomyelinase! --- can do & you'll know true phear.) And I'm especially biased, since I recently moved into Austin from Bastrop --- and frickin' Bastrop is LOUSY with teh Recluse. It's annoying that I, who so cherish arachnids, must internally justify my Instant and Unrelenting Persecution of the Reclusa species. I (and my daughter) kill them every chance we get. Luckily, unlike wolf spiders, Recluses are not aggressive and tend to freeze when disturbed ---making their termination a matter of a well-placed swat.

As for funnel weavers, most of those species are, generally, VERY aggressive. Which is one good thing about not living in Australia: The Sydney Funnel Web Spider is both one of the most venomous AND most aggressive (during the mating phase, at least) spiders around. Better a bite from a widow (and even a Recluse, prolly) than from one of those downunder buggers. (Extra credit: beware the Wandering Spider of Brazil! This is a hairy megalomorph --- think: tarantula --- with a genetic disposition toward, it seems, violent and relentless vendetta.)

Yeah, those scorpions around the Edwards Aquifer ...prolly what we had in Bastrop, too. Bark scorpions: a species of Centruroides. Not the deadly Centruroides Sculpturatus found in Arizona and thereabouts, but a less venomous species. Still, painful: I've been stung, and it's much like a hornet. Kinda funny how my pets (Pandinus imperator and Hadogenes troglodytes) are about twice the size of the biggest Centruroides and also LOOK much more impressive, texture- and color-wise ... but they're much less likely to sting and the strength of their venom is almost negligible.

L.A.? My condolences.

I have a fair amount of experience with both of these varieties. About five years ago I had a bite on my ankle. I thought it was a fly bite and didn't think much of it. On about the fifth day of having it tormenting me with it's itchiness I noticed that the bump had caved in and the whole thing was surrounded by a dark wine stain about the size of a half dollar. Hmmmm, that didn't look right, so I went to the ER to get it checked out. They diagnosed it as a brown recluse bite, gave me some massive antibiotics (the same kind they use to treat anthrax!), and sent me home.

Being the curious sort of person I am I them proceeded to do something insanely stupid... I decided to google recluse bites. If you ever get bitten just do what the doctor tells you and don't look up information whatever you do! If you think you might be bitten some time in the future, stop reading now.

I found an article the explained in graphic detail (with pictures) what usually happens. You get necrosis... basically all the tissue around the wound dies, right down to the bone. There's two common approaches to treating it... massive doses of antibiotics or cut out all the tissue in the area before it turns necrotic. The scarey part is that neither remedy usually works. If it goes necrotic the wound gets so big that it turns gangrenous and then they amputate. I was very lucky and never got necrosis. I just had a dark rough wine stain about four inches around the wound and six inches along my lymph nodes, one going up my leg and one down my foot. My uncle who was bitten in Arizona a few months later wasn't so lucky. He lost his finger.

Wolf spiders on the other hand, I see at least one a week. They seem to find their way in to my basement rather frequently. At first they scared the hell out of me. They're as a big as a silver dollar and look like tarantulas, and they're fast! They can also jump pretty damn high. I found that out the hard way when I tried to attack the first one I saw with a broom. I couldn't hit him. Nothing like a giant hairy spider jumping two feet in the air, at you!.

I've seen so many now that they just don't freak me out anymore. Sometimes if I'm feeling lazy I don't even go track them down anymore. If I'm not feeling lazy I get my vacuum cleaner. It's a hell of a lot easier to suck them up with the hose than to try and catch the buggers. Live and learn. I feel kind of bad killing them. They're nomadic hunters that live as long as three years. They're benign and beneficial since they eat other spiders and insects... hopefully any brown recluse!

Here's a pic of the dude that's currently living outisde my kitchen window. Macro lenses are fun

Chip that picture both turns me on and frightens me,

its very nice to see everyone's imput on these creatures of nature,
where I live,
the worst thing that could happen would be a huge arse daddy longlegs, which was my case at that early drunk hour of the morning, at least thats what I thought as my cat fatty chewed the poor defenceless hairy thing into kitty chow, heh

Well if you look at the facts.....
Spiders, like most insects and very small animals, flee from any kind of breathing. Breathing means alive. Alive means able to eat. Large enough breath to move me == able to eat me.

The only possible way for this to happen would be if a spider laid an egg sac inside your home. The spiders would then have to reach maturity to hatch (this probability kills off a number of them since the roaches in your home will more than likely eat the egg sacs ). The freshly hatched spiders would then need to find a sufficent amount of air current in your bedroom to "balloon" about 3-4 feet up and over your mouth directly. The chances of your mouth being open are about 50/50 since at least 1/2 the population sleeps with their mouth closed. The 50% left would have to be at just the right angle to swallow these little guys. BUT! their is only a 50% chance of you actually swallowing them even if everything else has some how magically happened. You would need to be inhaling at the exact moment they are over your mouth, else your breath would propel them away from your mouth. The fact is that you eat more dead spiders in chocolate throughout your life than you ever would live spiders in your sleep.

On a stick, no less!

I leave house and garden spiders alone, unless I know them to be poisonous - then they get the business.

Fortunately, where I live now in the upper midwest, we don't have many, if any poisonous spiders.

The situation was different when I used to live in west Texas.

My ex and I owned a pub - and we got scorpions and Black Widows in there.

Not being a native Texan, I would destroy the scorpions with vengeance - I didn't know that these type (yellowish-white, fairly small, and sort of translucent) were not deadly.

We also got them in and around our house.

One night after we closed up the bar, we arrived at home, and in the entryway, my ex was stung by a scorpion on her big toe. She was also a non-native, so we freaked out royally and ran her directly to the ER. The ER staff sort of chuckled a bit and informed us that there wasn't much they could do, it wasn't a deadly variety, and instructed us to go home. We did and she howled about her slightly swollen and reddened lower leg and foot until it subsided the following morning.

So, not so bad. However, about two years later, our neighbor was asleep, and was stung on her cheek by one. Her throat nearly swelled shut and she passed out. Her husband went crazy, and rightfully so. She almost didn't make it. The EMTs got there with not a minute to spare. Now that was a bit scary, watching your next door neighbor being wheeled out on a gurney unconscious, and not knowing why. She made a full recovery - but it made me like scorpions all the less.

We used to get them in the bathroom in both our pub and our home. Someone told me this is because they are attracted to moisture. Can anyone verify this?

Now - on the Black Widows in the bar. They used to show up on the back side of door jambs. I left them alone for the most part, the guy who owned the auto repair place next door had told me not to worry about them.

So, we didn't. Until the day one of our waitresses stopped by to pick up her paycheck - with her 2 toddlers in tow. The kids were playing hide and seek with each other, giggling and generally being kids. Well one of them, the boy, came into contact with one of the Widows and it bit him. We didn't know it bit him, and we don't think he did either. While my ex and the waitress chatted over some sodas, the kids continued playing, and I was watching TV. The little boy started to act almost drunk within half an hour. We thought maybe he was just punchy from playing so hard. Well, within a few more minutes, his arm started to cramp severly and spread to his shoulder, chest and neck. He started vomiting a few minutes after that. That's when we knew something was really wrong. We threw him in my van and ran him up to the ER. I remember his mom was pertrified because she was thinking that because we had no idea what was causing this, that the doctors wouldn't either.

As it turned out, the doctor that saw him realized within a couple minutes that he had been bitten by a Black Widow. This was further reinforced by my admission that I had seen them around the place.

Because he was a child, they immediately gave him antivenin. He improved, but the effects did linger for a few weeks. Pain and aches, and more cramping. Poor kid. My ex and I felt terrible.

From that point on, we had a pest control service come out every week. If I found any he had missed I killed them on the spot.

Ahh, the memories of West Texas. Scorpions, Black Widows, Rattle Snakes, Vinegaroons, Millipedes (HUGE ones), cockroaches, and many more creepy crawlers!

Everytime I move into a new place I have a talk with my new roommates. I sit down and make it well known that I won't go out of my way to hunt them down. They live up in the corners of the ceiling and kill bugs which I easily provide I guess and they live. If they come down into my world thier ant bait. So far only wolf spiders hate this agreement.

The most horrible spider I've ever had contact with was what my pest control guy called a 'sun spider'. I found it in my bathroom, sitting on the top edge of a drawer just under the counter. It was HUGE, with a big swollen abdomen (turns out it was a female full of eggs) - probably about 3" long. It wasn't moving, and I'm usually curious, so I went and got a jar and a stick

Turns out the damn things are REALLY fast and REALLY aggressive, and poking it was not a good idea. It lunged at the stick, then fell to the floor and ran in the opposite direction when I nearly peed my pants and leapt backwards. On the ground it looked much bigger, it's legs were all spread out and stuff. Anyway, I finally captured it, and kept it in a jar to show the pest control guy.

This is by far the scariest bug I've ever seen. It's huge, and it has four "jaws" - I put a cricket in the jar with it, and it just pounced on it, and the four jaws moved independantly, and it just mangled the poor cricket.

http://kaweahoaks.com/html/wind_scorpian.htm

I had a huge spider crawl into my bed one night and bite me on the top of the skull when I rolled over on it in my sleep. I didn't even wake up.

But the next morning I went to comb my hair and found that I had a numb spot on my haead about the size of my palm. I called the doctor and he suggested that it might be a spider bite and was probably harmless. He told me to give it a week and see if the numbness went away.

I was a little freaked about it, thinking I had a stroke or something. I went up to my bedroom and looked around the bedding, and sure enough, crushed on my pillow was one hell of a big garden-type spider.

The numb patch actually stayed totally numb for TWO WEEKS. And then faded. Was a strange incident.

But I grew up around black widows and brown recluse, so wasn't overly freaked. Just happy it wasn't either of those.

You're just lucky it didn't bite your eyes!! Did you clean out your ears? TYhey lay eggs in there.

omg i hate spiders..i have a phobia of them...and our backyard is full of em..if they enter the house i totally freak and i need someone to remove it or smoosh it (depending how freaked out i am) anyhoo the worst spider exp i had was when i was camping last year, and we were all settling in for the night in our tents. i had just put out the flashlight and pulled my sleeping bag up over me, when thump i felt something hit my ears. petrified i flung the thing off of me screamed, woke up most of the campers, and turned on the flashlight. and there staring its beady lil black eyes at me was the biggest spider i have ever seen. i unzipped the tent, and ran out in the dark with who knows what out there, and stood there in my undies untill someone got rid of it. the only time ive ever slept with a light on. the end

Aw, now, Google would bring you bigger, better information more quickly than I could, Madame! Personally, though, I can attest to how fun Harvestmen are to have around the house. (Although, yeah, they can freak you out if they happen to delicately stilt their way across your sleeping face at night.)

Big millipedes in West Texas? Pshaw, says me: my pet (yes, more than just scorpions have I) millipede, "Clobber", is from Ghana and he's almost ten inches long and as big around as my thumb! People are often relentlessly afraid of scorpions (and vinegaroons & such), but when I bring Clobber to parties, lots of ppl (men AND women) wind up giving him rides on their arms as they oooh annd ahhh over how strange and gentle a creature he is.

My tailless whipscorpion is named Stairway Sam, btw ... and $50 lindens to the first person who knows where I cadged that name from!

Scorpions attracted to moisture?

Consider it verified.

(And lemme ask YOU something, too? How the hell do you survive in the upper midwest, where there's prolly NO DECENT SALSA TO BE FOUND!?)

Not true, check snopes.

*shudders* i hate spiders..and anything with more than 4 legs, excluding insects...there just ewwww

Hmm... there's a character by that name in the old Cary Grant film "His Girl Friday"... is that where you got it?

P2

Phoenix, next time I'm inworld I'll be adding those fifty lindens to your coffers!

Because, yes, that's precisely where the name comes from ...

Scuze me while I convulse after reading this thread.

lol u and me both