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Communing With Spiders

Lol I'm wondering if the huntsmen are beginning to be trained. If they are high up I knock them into a bucket with a duster to take them out. My family has been complaining about a pinky coloured one that's usually in the bathroom. This morning there it was sitting in the insect disposing bucket which was left near where I usually sit. I looked at it and I swear it waved 2 legs. It sat there perfectly still as I took it out(not trying to jump out like most spiders do.) If so, I hope it passes the trait on to its offspring.
 
Ugh I hate those pinky coloured ones with their freakish long front legs and shorter back ones - they squash themselves flat into this little mass of twisted squashed looking spideryness. They are FOUL. The greyish ones with the more traditionally proportioned spider legs are just as scary but not quite as disgusting.

I remarked to my friend the other day that it was "huntsman weather" - warm and humid, and sure enough the next day when getting petrol I just about touched a huntsman which had squashed itself inside the little petrol door, right next to the cap. I nearly had a fit right there at the bowser. Fortunately it was only a small one, probably a teenager (perhaps why it was hiding in my petrol door, sulking about spider acne or no one understanding it). I grabbed the complimentary windscreen washer and brandished it at the unimpressed teen, even poking it with the wooden handle. It sat and glowered at me, before scuttling off quicker than the eye could follow underneath the car.

I refuse to let it scare me off driving. It may still be living somewhere on my car - perhaps feasting on bugs, and growing to enormous, juicy proportions, then when it is hand sized, it will drop down from the inside of the sun visor onto my lap while I'm driving.
 
Big guy from Mario last I heard LOL :lol:
Cross between a turtle and a dinosaur...
 
Quake42 said:
I nearly had a fit right there at the bowser
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What's a bowser? :confused:
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Petrol pump. It is a strange word. You had me thinking I had made it up, but I googled it and it is real.

Many a time I have tried to communicate with the foolish daddy long legs who get into the shower, as I try to scoop them up into a glass, saying "it's ok I'm trying to help you, no don't go that way, walk to the LEFT etc etc" but they never listen.
 
And Rainy Ocean, that pic you posted was quite beautiful. What sort of spider is that?
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Thanks. I'm sorry, I don't know what kind it is. Something that lives in Pennsylvania, U.S., apparently.
 
My father used to have to go to the States with the MOD. He would spend a few months out there doing hot weather trials on various helicopters and then come back to Boscombe Down.

I remember him saying that they would occasionally bring Black Widows back accidentally in some of the packing crates. He could sit on the loo in deepest Wiltshire, looking up at a Black Widow in the corner of the room.

They would leave the windows open - first frost and the toilet is home to little Black Widow corpses.

As far as I'm aware he never tried talking to them...

...and if I ever saw anything as big as a huntsman in my house I would, in the words of Bill Bryson, literally shit myself to death with my entrails making a comedy parp as I collapse...
 
lardfan said:
. Fortunately it was only a small one, probably a teenager (perhaps why it was hiding in my petrol door, sulking about spider acne or no one understanding it). I grabbed the complimentary windscreen washer and brandished it at the unimpressed teen, even poking it with the wooden handle. It sat and glowered at me, before scuttling off quicker than the eye could follow underneath the car.

.
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The idea of a teenage spider sulking made me giggle so much, i manage to ignore the sheer terror and nausea engendered by this thread.

I know i hate spiders, so why did i come here? why do i do this to myself ?<wanders off shaking head sorrowfully>
 
Well I talked to the small fat spider that walked across my sofa yesterday and told it to get out or i'd have to hoover it. Hope it works.

I was in a far less chatty mood with the red centipede than was on the floor. I thought it was fluff so tried to pick it up and it RAN! :shock: s.q.u.e.a.l. urgh i nearly touched it.

But since it wasn't a spider i decided to try and move it outside and made it walk onto a piece of paper.

But it didn't walk it RAN on to the paper towards me! - faster than you could react to! So I panicked and dropped the paper and then it was gone and i don't know where to. Last time I try to help some crawly leggy thing. Bastards.
 
lemonpie3 said:
Well I talked to the small fat spider that walked across my sofa yesterday and told it to get out or i'd have to hoover it. Hope it works.

.
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i do that with small creatures/spiders/moths i can't reach to throw out. i stand there and sternly say 'out, now! or i'm getting insect spray!'. works, sometimes, too
 
I really don't like spiders, they completely freak me out. I'm such a wuss with them. Although quite a few times, I've been waiting for someone, or walked into a room and suddenly thought 'SPIDER!' and then I see one. Usually a big horrible hairy one. Before I actually see it, I feel all tingly as if there is some kind of danger nearby. Of course, I'm probably just somehow seeing the spider out of the corner of my eye but perhaps I'm just psychically attuned to spiders?!
 
One time I was sitting in my son's room, trying to clean up the piles of magazines he had lying around, and a spider about as big as my hand crawled out. Luckily amid all the mess there was a 3 pound hand weight which I just reached out and used to whack it. It was full of clear goo which I guess is giant spider blood. My mom did the same thing at her house once, hit a giant spider and about a thousand babies came out which they had to have sprayed. The story about the bird-eating spider in the ceiling really creeped me out. If one of those things dropped onto my bed I guess I would have a heart attack.

However, as to communing with critters, not a spider but never mind, once I was standing around next to my car, all alone, on a hot Sunday afternoon and I saw a brilliant blue insect of some sort crawling on the ground toward me, about 5 or 6 feet away. As it got closer I realized it was, or had been, a beautiful bluebottle or dragonfly of some sort. But its entire lower body had been bitten off somehow and its wings damaged. It was dragging itself over the hot asphalt in the most horrifying way. I get sort of sick right now remembering it. It dragged itself right up to my foot, and I really did get a clear wordless message that it wanted to die, and so I stepped on it. Mercy stomping. :cry:
 
RainyOcean said:
And Rainy Ocean, that pic you posted was quite beautiful. What sort of spider is that?
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Thanks. I'm sorry, I don't know what kind it is. Something that lives in Pennsylvania, U.S., apparently.
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Those big stripey black and yellow ones are called argiopes (ar-GUY-a-pees, not AR- jee-oaps as I thought having only seen it written down)- there are lots of different types but they all weave interesting orb- webs with lacy struts and patterns in them.
I'm a spider lover through and through (got the chance to study them a bit at college too), and I do believe that they come into my house because they know they won't get squished. My mother is scared s**tless by them and once called me at a friend's house to come home and remove one from the living room. I perform the same function for friends; one friend of mine lived in a very damp flat which held some of the biggest house spiders I have ever seen. Ever.
One time when I couldn't assist, she actually went door- knocking to get help removing a spider roughly the size of a Jack Russell from her hallway. Having rounded up a strange man, she gave him a pint glass and an envelope to catch the creature. It didn't fit. She had to get a Pyrex mixing bowl and a 12- inch Cure LP. I believe she made him walk about a mile away from her flat before releasing it!
Seriously, I love 'em and the thought of squashing one, even by accident, makes me feel awful. Just look in any biology book and see how complex they are- their hearts run down where their spine would be and they breathe through their abdomen using book lungs. To smush one is to smush a thing of beauty!
 
I would never kill a garden spider, especially the beautiful yellow and black ones. They are called "writing spiders" around here because of the alphabet-like mends they make in their webs. One summer we had numerous ones on the porch and I watched one lady meet, honeymoon, and devour her hubbie.

I have taken spiders that I knew were not browns or black widows outside with the jar-and-cardboard trick but I still don't like the idea of truly enormous spiders jumping around me especially if they surprise me close up or want to live in my boots. The brown house spiders can cause nasty damage if they bite.
 
illuminati37411 said:
I would never kill a garden spider, especially the beautiful yellow and black ones. They are called "writing spiders" around here because of the alphabet-like mends they make in their webs. One summer we had numerous ones on the porch and I watched one lady meet, honeymoon, and devour her hubbie.

I have taken spiders that I knew were not browns or black widows outside with the jar-and-cardboard trick but I still don't like the idea of truly enormous spiders jumping around me especially if they surprise me close up or want to live in my boots. The brown house spiders can cause nasty damage if they bite.
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I take it you live across the water somewhere... All the spiders here in Britain are the filing clerks of the arachnid world- innocuous, mostly unseen and unthought of. The wolf spider could give you a bite if it were so inclined but they are reclusive garden- dwellers and don't bother with people. The house spider on occasion gets big enough to bite but I've never been bitten by one, and I tend to pick them up with my hands. You wait, I'll get savaged next time now I've said that!
 
I take it you live across the water somewhere... All the spiders here in Britain are the filing clerks of the arachnid world- innocuous, mostly unseen and unthought of. The wolf spider could give you a bite if it were so inclined

I think we have some sort of wolf spiders here too, and they are jumpers, but not poisonous. I live in the American south and there are poison spiders here, although I have only seen them once or twice in my life. Black widows are unmistakeable -- shiny with a red hourglass on the body. And I've only seen them in sheds and outdoors under concrete blocks in the hot sun. But I've never been able to figure out just what the browns look like. Brown house spiders have flesh-eating bacteria in their mouths and that is why they cause boulder-sized holes when they bite. :twisted:
 
Interesting... we have a type of house spider in Australia called the white tailed spider, (it's dull black with a white tip on its bum) that can also cause a flesh eating bacterial disease.

There was a huge media beat up about it in the 80s and now people are terrified of them and seem to think they are venomous. But while they CAN cause bacterial infection, the likelihood seems very slim. I myself was bitten and it ached for an hour or so, and I developed a lump that lasted for a few weeks, but that was it.

I think you would need to have a compromised immune system or just very bad luck to get the full leg rotting off thing. They are also thankfully quite passive - useful, because they tend to get into clothes and bedding. I only got bitten because I sat on the poor thing, which was on my bed at the time. I don't know anyone else who has been bitten (or been aware of it anyway), which suggests that they are both passive and mostly harmless, because they are very common and there would almost certainly be at least one lurking in each house (in the undies drawer perhaps) at any given time.

I am terrified of spiders, but white tails bother me much less since I was bitten, strangely.

We also have red back spiders, which are related to your black widows. I wasn't aware yours had any red on them - sounds like they are almost identical. They are very venomous but thankfully quite reclusive and tend to live in dark spaces outdoors.
 
In a strange coincidence, while following ths thread something that appears to have been a spider bit me while I was out in my garden. It has made a huge red streaky thing on my side but luckily not a boulder-size hole. Those spider lovers out there will probably say I am getting my just desserts since I am a spider stomper in the house. :D

Didn't know there were relatives of black widows in Australia. I never can remember if the bw hourglass is on the back or the belly side. Back I think. They seem to like clutter and piled up junk that is left alone. Yoiu pull out something from the pile and sit down and the next thing you know there one is crawling out. An acquaintance of mine years ago thought they were demonic. :twisted:
 
illuminati37411 said:
In a strange coincidence, while following ths thread something that appears to have been a spider bit me while I was out in my garden. It has made a huge red streaky thing on my side but luckily not a boulder-size hole. Those spider lovers out there will probably say I am getting my just desserts since I am a spider stomper in the house. :D

Didn't know there were relatives of black widows in Australia. I never can remember if the bw hourglass is on the back or the belly side. Back I think. They seem to like clutter and piled up junk that is left alone. Yoiu pull out something from the pile and sit down and the next thing you know there one is crawling out. An acquaintance of mine years ago thought they were demonic. :twisted:
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Black widows have the hourglass on the underside, the redback has a red splurge on the, er, back. Both are genus Latrodectus along with the Brown widow, the Katipo and the Malmignatte (fab name that one). All have that glossy spiky evil look to them... I always check my bananas carefully :lol:
 
I'm starting to think i need help - there was an enormous spider in my office yesterday, the size of your palm and FAT and i freaked out and ran away, and then i couldn't go near that corner and i needed stuff that was there.

So i got the hoover out and thought 'i can do this' and went towards the corner with the vacuum cleaner, so i've got like a yard and a half of metal tube between it and my hand, and i couldn't even get anywhere near where i thought it was! I couldn't move anything out of the way, and i was sweating, so i had to go and get my retired old age pensioner landlady to come and get it, and i couldn't even move the stuff in the corner for her! She was shifting boxes, moving fire extinguishers... :oops:

It took ages to calm down after she got it, and then just this second something black moved out of the corner of my eye and i leapt about a metre off my chair. It turned out to be a tiny little black fly walking around on my desk, but my heartrate hasn't gone back to normal and i'm as jumpy as hell!

How do you get over an irrational prejudice against spiders?
 
This spider has been in my bathroom for about a day now:
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Not sure if it's mutant, or the Long John Silver of the spider world! :D
 
Ah! That's not a spider. I think it's what I would call a harvestman.
 
Two weeks ago at band practice, we had two spiders, with something like a three inch leg span, the first spider that I scooped up was going beserk trying to run up my sleeve at first abd was running around in my cupped hand and I transgered ot putside onto a wall. The second spider, when I cupped it in my hands went beserk and was running around and I told it to calm down and that it was safe and it settled down, when I took it outside it wouldn't get off my hand, it just stayed there stock still and I had to poke it with some force to get it moving. The other four band members were trying to get as far away as possible from them and I had to give my guitar to the bass player because he refused to touch them. Our drummer is also a big wuss when it comes to spiders as well, I had to go to his house once because he had a spider the size of a two pence coin in his symbols bag and wouldn't go near it until I got it out. My uncle also used to have a mexican red kneed tarantula that would try to bite everyone given half the chance yet I handled it fine. If it has more than four legs or scales I love it, or for that matter, any animal..



p.s: I have plans to emigrate to Australia and would love to know what spiders to look out for, not to fussed about pain, it's the ones that could kill me that I'm bothered about. Its either Perth or somewhere on the Goldcoast I would love to live.
 
rynner said:
This spider has been in my bathroom for about a day now:
IMG_1727.jpg

Not sure if it's mutant, or the Long John Silver of the spider world! :D
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Don't move it on - those spindly ones' favourite food is the big brown house spider. I watched a fight between one of each in our back room once. It didn't last long, and spindly ended up with a meal that lasted a week.
 
eyepod said:
Don't move it on - those spindly ones' favourite food is the big brown house spider. I watched a fight between one of each in our back room once. It didn't last long, and spindly ended up with a meal that lasted a week.
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A fighter, eh?

I suppose that's how it lost a leg, then.

I didn't move it, but it's gone now. But there must be food here for him - just ten minutes ago I watched a small spider climb vertically up an invisible strand behind my monitor. Go, Spindly, go! 8)
 
eyepod said:
rynner said:
This spider has been in my bathroom for about a day now:
IMG_1727.jpg

Not sure if it's mutant, or the Long John Silver of the spider world! :D
Click to expand...

Don't move it on - those spindly ones' favourite food is the big brown house spider. I watched a fight between one of each in our back room once. It didn't last long, and spindly ended up with a meal that lasted a week.
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This must have been some fight, as the Harvestman has no fangs and contains no venom at all- all it has is a tiny pair of pincers. It is omnivorous, feeding on small bugs like aphids and occasionally rotting vegetation.
I wonder what they were fighting about and how Spindly managed to kill the spider? Maybe he punched it out and found himself with more of a meal than he expected! :p
 
Today at work during a quiet period the boss asked me to clean out a windowsill area where we display some goods.

The area was pretty cobwebby, and I discovered a dead bee completely wrapped in cobwebs! :shock:
 
People apply the term Daddy-long-legs to both long legged spiders and to harvestmen - it's a harvestman in the photo - spiders have three body segments, havestmen just have one and look like walking lentils. But phlocids, also called daddy-long-legs or celler spiders, have very long legs and prey on other spiders. I'd guess that's what was eating the other spider.
 
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