• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Communing With Spiders

disgruntledgoth said:
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.
Click to expand...
I'd go with Perth. And I say that without a hint of bias.

*Hides location*

>_>

In Perth all you really want to try to avoid are White Tail Spiders, and even then peoples reactions to them vary. And whilst relatively harmless, you probably don't want to encounter a huntsman in close quarters. They're big buggers and I don't know if there's any thruth in this, but I've heard they can jump!
 
how Spindly managed to kill the spider?
Click to expand...

by wafting many strands of web down on to it from above until it was too gummed up to struggle violently, then dropping down and wrapping it up properly during a series of advances and retreats.


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.
Click to expand...

Having now read that and done a bit of research I think it may be pholcids that I have in my house.

spiders1s8du.jpg


If I disturb their webs they spin round in a little circle really fast for a couple of minutes. Apparently an anti-predator response.
 
Erm, Are they fighting, or making love..? :shock:
 
As they both came out of it alive, I think they were making the beast with 16 legs ;)

Edit: Tho that usually ends with just the one alive when spiders are concerned, doesn't it?

I'm confused now. Need more research I think...
 
Having now read that and done a bit of research I think it may be pholcids that I have in my house.
If I disturb their webs they spin round in a little circle really fast for a couple of minutes. Apparently an anti-predator response.
Click to expand...
There ya go, then- harvestmen don't sit in webs (they seem to like sitting in my bath).
Those ceiling spiders are cool, I had one in my old bedroom for ages- I would blow on it and it would dissolve into a blur jiggling its web. It was virtually transparent too. They don't eat very often apparently :vampire:
 
Watch out, the black widow's sister is ready to bite you
By David Sapsted
Last Updated: 2:22am GMT 17/11/2006

A man spent three days in hospital after being bitten by a venomous spider now spreading across the country because of global warming.

The false widow spider, a relative of the black widow, bit Jason Fricker, 34, three times on the chest and stomach after it fell down the front of his shirt a week ago. By Sunday, after treatment as an outpatient the previous day, Mr Fricker, a father of two from Dorchester, was admitted as an emergency by doctors who believed the venom was attacking his nervous system, causing a heart attack.

The creature that caused such damage, Steatoda nobilis, is the only species of spider in Britain capable of biting humans. Although it has been known in Britain since arriving in Torquay in bananas from the Canary Islands in the 1870s, its numbers and range are now growing because of the milder climates.

While it is not nearly as venomous as the black widow, in recent years it has spread from the West Country across southern England as far as Sussex and is now migrating north through Surrey.

Stuart Hine, the manager of insect services at the Natural History Museum, said: "It is moving further northwards and is thought to be in London now. That's to do with the general warming up of winter temperatures because they are able to survive the winter and breed.

"All spiders are venomous but the difference with these false widow spiders is that their fangs can pierce the skin. Global warming means that spiders which originate from southern Europe and North Africa and Asia are now more likely to be able to survive in Britain."

Mr Fricker, who runs a fishery and tackle shop, discovered he had been bitten as he set out his angling goods on his stall at the market.

"I was carrying the goods in a cardboard box when I think the spider must have come out of the corner of the box and went down my front," he said yesterday. "Five minutes later, I felt this sort of burning sensation on my chest like a wasp sting.

"I shook my jumper and the spider fell down on to my stomach. Then it must have bitten me again and I saw this spider fall to the floor and scuttle off into the centre of Salisbury."

Mr Fricker thought nothing of it until the next day when he started to feel unwell. His wife Katie, 30, spotted the bites. "When the doctor saw the puncture wounds he got all excited and said: 'You are the first person in my career I have seen who has been bitten by a spider. There is no doubt about this'."

After identifying the spider as a false widow on a hospital computer, he was sent home with anti-histamine tablets. But the next day, his condition deteriorated. "I thought I was having a heart attack. The pain in my chest was excruciating," he said. "I seriously thought I was going to die, it was that bad."

Mr Fricker was admitted to Dorchester County Hospital where doctors believed he might be having a heart seizure caused by an extreme reaction to the bite.

"I was wired up on drips and was given heart drugs. I spent three days in hospital for being bitten by something I hadn't even heard of," he said.

Mr Fricker, who has a son Ryan, nine, and daughter Charlotte, two, was released from hospital on Tuesday and is convalescing at home.

Doctors say that, in the vast majority of cases, the spider's bite should be no more painful, and the medical consequences no more serious, than a wasp sting.
Click to expand...
http://tinyurl.com/yanmjt
 
They're not going away...! :shock:

Black widow bites in Devon garden


A Devon woman is recovering after a bite from exotic spider turned her thumb black and swelled her arm.
Geraldine Williamson from Countess Wear, near Exeter, believes she was bitten by a false black widow which is native to the Canary Islands.

She said her thumb felt like it was "on fire" after the bite in her garden. She was rushed to hospital struggling to breathe and is now using antibiotics.

The Natural History Museum asked her to try to trap the spider and send it on.

The round spider, which is brown with pale markings, looks like its deadly black namesake but its bite is believed to be similar to that of a wasp.

Mrs Williamson said: "I was just outside the back door sweeping up some garden debris and leaves with a dustpan and brush when suddenly I felt as if my thumb was on fire with all these sharp needles digging into my thumb. "Within seconds my thumb was numb. It swelled right up and was turning black very, very fast."

Her arm also swelled up and became numb and her husband rushed her to hospital by which time she was struggling to breathe

She was given antibiotics and kept under observation for several hours before being sent home. She had to keep her arm in traction for three days and still has red lumps up and down her arm and feels feverish.

Mrs Williamson says she identified the spider's markings as Steatoda Nobilis from a web search.

The Natural History Museum says the number of reports of bites by this strain is increasing as the species spreads in the south and east of England.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/6919252.stm
 
I was bitten by a black widow when I was about 12 years old. Their venom actually isn't all that dangerous except to the very young & very old. I ran a fever of 101 for 2 days & had a large hard swollen knot about twice the size of a quarter on my leg (the site of the bite) for about a week, but otherwise escaped with no permanent damage (or professional medical attention).

I had a close friend though who was bitten by a brown recluse when she was young, and had to have a large piece of the back of her leg & knee removed due to necrosis that developed..
 
A few months ago, my apartment somehow got totally over-run with flies. There were like a dozen or two big ones, all just buzzing around the living room. To say it was annoying is something of an understatement; it was almost intolerable. I killed 2-3 of them, and I think my dogs got a couple too, but it didn't seem to really help much. Then one day, shortly after this fly madness began, it occurred to me that if I opened the sliding glass door, they would all fly out of it, and into the outdoors. So I did, and I watched them all fly out, almost immediately. It subsequently occurred to me that perhaps opening the sliding the door was their idea, and they'd somehow managed to communicate it to me.

Good riddance, in any event!
 
A couple of weeks after moving into my new flat, the rain started. It was hot all day, and wet all night, and living 100 yards from a river means 70+ inch long midges in my room every night. I got so fed up that I made a mosquito net for my window. I haven't had a mossie in now for at least two weeks! But now I have a pretty brown spider spinning a web in the top corner of my windw, and she has no food :(
 
Afghan spider forces Army family out of home
The family of a British paratrooper has moved out of their home after a dangerous spider hitched a lift back from Afghanistan with him.
By Stephen Adams
Last Updated: 10:35PM BST 27 Aug 2008

Days after Rodney Griffiths returned home from a four-month tour of Helmand province with 16 Air Assault Brigade, the family's pet dog Bella mysteriously died.

Son Ricky, 16, then spotted the giant spider, prompting the soldier's wife Lorraine to move the family out of their four-bedroom army home in Colchester, Essex.

Mother-of-four Mrs Griffiths, 37, said: "Ricky saw a huge spider and screamed to his sister Cassie. They tried to put a pint-glass over it but it was too big, they poked it with a coat hanger and the spider bit it. The dog came in, jumped on the bed and barked at it. The spider hissed and Bella went running out whimpering."

Days later the family took Bella to the vet with a high temperature and swollen stomach. She had to be put down. Mrs Griffiths said she thought her death "too much of a coincidence" although the vet could not say why the dog died.

After scouring the internet for spider descriptions they decided the culprit was a camel spider.

She said: "I think it must have hitched a lift back with my husband in June."

The spider has now taken up residence in her 18-year-old daughter Cassie's bedroom.

Mrs Griffiths, who admitted to being "petrified of spiders", has now taken her children to live at her mother's.

A camel spider is type of arachnid known as a solpugid, that can grow up to five inches long and run at up to 10mph.

Iain Newby of Essex's Dangerous and Wild Animals Rescue Facility said: "It is venomous but would not kill you."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... -home.html
 
I had a run in with a spider when I was cleaning out my shed in Essex, a few years ago. It bit me on the elbow, the bastard. After a few hours I felt feverish and went to bed. I slept for 18 hours. 'Spiders in England aren't poisonous', I thought, and ignored it, putting it down to flu.

Upon waking, I had a nasty purplish, blackish spot at the point of the bite, that turned over the next days into a a nasty inflamed lump that began to exhibit signs of necrosis, with a blood infection to boot. I went to the doctor and he prescribed some hardcore antibiotics and dealt with the wound.

I still have a big scar on my elbow.

English spiders. Grrrr. Sly bastards.
 
I'm not an arachnophobe at all, but there was this really disgusting looking spider on the wall of my flat recently. Spiders are usually beautiful and graceful, symetrical and mysterious, but this thing was out of proportion, ugly and malformed. I don't know if it was a spider I had never seen before, or a normal spider gone wrong. It was moving around easily, not staggering, ir was about the size of a coaster from leg tip to leg tip and jet black.
 
I wish I knew what kind of spider a saw a while back.

I was walking through the bush about a year or two ago and I saw this really pretty spider. It was round like a redback and was orange and black mottling all over its body, and orange and black striped legs. It looked about the size of a garden orb weaver and I kept walking along.

Either the following day or the one after that I was walking through the same area and I turned down a seldom-used walking track about a foot wide. I got about half a metre down the path when I stopped EXTREMELY suddenly, because there was a huge orb-web strung out across the path with my spider sitting in the centre of it (about 6 inches from my face), but now it was absolutely massive.
To my mind the thing was the size of an orange. I'm probably wrong about that, but in all honesty I would say it was probably at least 2 1/2 cm across the abdomen.

I think it must have been a mottled form of redback but the biggest redback I've seen was only 1 1/2cm across the belly. This was much, much bigger.

I've gone through the MacLeay museum in Sydney and the Natural History museums. I've hunted online and in spider books and I've never seen it. I wonder sometimes if it was a non-native species but there are way too many kinds of spider for me to go through them all.


On a conversational note. I love spiders, especially huntsmans. I think they're just beautiful. I used to have a 'pet' one called Harry in my old house in Western Sydney. We were close to the bush there and we had a lot of bugs in the house. The only ones I kill are the white-tips. I've heard the ulceration reaction occurs only if you're allergic to their bites but I don't want to find out if I am one. Seeing my friend's Mum's leg swell up like a beachball every year is enough to put me off allowing them in my home.

My big fear is centipedes. Ugh. I feel shivery just typing the word :( [/b]
 
Giant spider eating a bird caught on camera
By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney
Last Updated: 3:01pm BST 22/10/2008

Photographs of a giant spider eating a bird in an Australian garden have stunned wildlife experts.

The pictures show the spider with its long black legs wrapped around the body of a dead bird suspended in its web.

The startling images were reportedly taken in Atheron, close to Queensland's tropical north.

Despite their unlikely subject matter, the pictures appear to be real.

Joel Shakespeare, head spider keeper at the Australian Reptile Park, said the spider was a Golden Orb Weaver.

"Normally they prey on large insects… it's unusual to see one eating a bird," he told ninemsn.

Mr Shakepeare said he had seen Golden Orb Weaver spiders as big as a human hand but the northern species in tropical areas were known to grow larger.

Queensland Museum identified the bird as a native finch called the Chestnut-breasted Mannikin.

Mr Shakespeare told ninemsn the bird must have flown into the spider web and become stuck.

"It wouldn't eat the whole bird," he said.

"It uses its venom to break down the bird for eating and what it leaves is a food parcel," he said.

Greg Czechura from Queensland Museum said cases of the Golden Orb Weaver eating small birds were "well known but rare".

"It builds a very strong web," he said.

But he said the spider would not have attacked until the bird weakened.

The Golden Orb Weaver spins a strong web high in protein because it depends on it to capture large insects for food.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.j ... der122.xml
 
i think spiders are fascinating i would love to have my own but my partner is not too keen on the idea its not because he dont like them or is scared of them just not too keen :lol: oh well :D

here is one of my favourite species of spiders:

A_metallica-full.jpg
 
Spider Pals

Hello,

I've got two spider tales (Not legs! that would be cruel!...) One is when I was a kid aged about 8 I 'tamed' a 'House spider' ...I kept it in a big disused pan at the side of the sink in the kitchen (Sounds like 'The Munsters' House dun't it!)

Every morning I would put a few breadcrumbs in for it to eat, and in the eve I would gently pick it out of the pan, take it into the living room and play with it on the floor.

I called it 'Charlie' and our (My?) favourite game was my hand pretending to chase it on the carpet, then him pretending? to chase my hand! ..Sometimes I would go way across the room, wiggle my hand on the carpet, and he would, as far as I can remember, always come running!

My Ma thought I was quite Mad, and didn't know what to make of it, saying things like, "Where's that little Termite?" when she would gingerly enter the living room.

Charlie got so tame he started following both myself and my Ma around the place, which turned out to be not such a good thing..

One morning I came downstairs, and my Ma said she had "Bad news"... "Charlie's dead!" I felt momentarily shocked and devestated!

Turns out the night before Charlie had been following my Ma about the place (Back and forth to the Kitchen mainly, for her regular cups of Tea) and at some point she'd stepped backwards and flattened him!

This little tale still saddens me, as he was as close to me as any other childhood pet, but I feel a sense of privilege that I got to be his Pal!

The other little tale, is along the lines of 'Psychic Communing' possibly?
It's a bit of an odd tale, but arn't they all!! .. Twas a few years ago, I was home and suddenly bursting for a wee!... I rushed to the Loo, was about to sit (As Ladies do!) when, there was a sense of alarm in my head that sort of said 'No don't you'll hurt me'! I instinctivly jumped up and turned to peer into the Loo bowl, and there clinging to the side near the water was a tiny Spider! I rescued him with a piece of Toiler roll, and felt a true sense of communication between us! I put him down and told him to be careful and take care, and off he scurried, and that was that!

It's not like theses experienses happen alot, so when they do they stand out! Maybe all living creatures do share the same 'Web of consciousness'! and at times of Crisis, the threads open up somewhat??

Firefly
 
That picture was too big :( I love spiders but not in my face!!
 
Giant spiders invade Australian Outback town
Sophie Tedmanson in Sydney

Australia is known around the world for its large and deadly creepy crawlies, but even locals have been shocked by the size of the giant venomous spiders that have invaded an Outback town in Queensland.

Scores of eastern tarantulas, which are known as “bird-eating spiders” and can grow larger than the palm of a man’s hand, have begun crawling out from gardens and venturing into public spaces in Bowen, a coastal town about 700 miles northwest of Brisbane.

Earlier this week locals spotted an Australian tarantula wandering towards a public garden in the centre of town where people often sit for lunch. They called in a pest controller, but not before using a can of insect spray to paralyse the spider.

Audy Geiszler, who runs Amalgamated Pest Control in Bowen, said that the spider was a large male with powerful long fangs and was so big that when he placed it – dead – in the palm of his hand its legs hung over his fingers.

Mr Geiszler said that he had been inundated with calls from worried locals reporting sightings of the giant tarantulas, which have been pushed out of their natural habitat over the past month by heavy, unseasonal rain.

"There have been a number of reports. It's not plague proportions but a number have been spotted around the district,” Mr Geiszler told The Times today shortly after receiving a call from a resident who had spotted another spider on the outskirts of town.

While not deadly like other Australian spiders, the eastern tarantulas are venomous and can grow up to 6cm (2.4in) long with a leg span of 16cm (6.3in). Despite their common name, they do not eat birds, but can kill a dog with one bite, and make a human very sick.

They are also known as whistling or barking spiders for the hissing noise they emit when they are disturbed or aggravated at close range.

Mr Geiszler said that they were common in the east of Australia, but usually kept out of the way and lived under mulch and logs and in natural rocky outcrops.

“I’ve warned folks around here to make sure they wear shoes and gloves when they are gardening at the moment as it can be a very nasty bite,” he said.

Asked what he would do with the giant spider he caught this week, Mr Geiszler said: “I think I’m going to mount this one in acrylic to show people how big it is. It’ll make a great paperweight.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 231301.ece
 
goth13girl666 said:
celticrose said:
That picture was too big :( I love spiders but not in my face!!
Click to expand...

sorry my bad, i will find a smaller one now for you



better?
Click to expand...

I would like you banned. There is a line and that kind of shenanigans cross it...
 
You know when you go through life blissfully ignorant of some fact that later you learn and wonder how you've survived unscathed for so long?

Here's one:

When I was still married to my awful ex, we had a resident spider behind our bathroom clock which the kids named Boris.

Boris would come out to say hello every evening at the kids bathtime and we had a little ritual which involved us singing a little song to her (despite the male name it was apparent that she was a she).

And lo! Boris had baby spiders that hoiked it out of the fanlight next to the clock (mostly - the remaining babies were collected in a glass and put outside).

Then Boris disappeared one night.
Fast forward to the morning when the evil ex was getting dressed.
She pulled up her knickers and was bitten twice on her arse cheek by something.
In great pain, she whipped off her knickers (I could insert a witticism here, but that might be crass) and Boris fell to floor, deftly followed by the ex's foot with which to squish her.

UK Safari identified Boris as a false widow.

Sadly she became spider-intolerant after spending some time on antibiotics for what became a nasty infection on her bum, so we no longer had fun at bathtime.

Funny though.
 
Like we haven't all blamed nasty infections on a spider bite?!

No?

Just me then?! :shock:
 
Last summer the soon-to-be-mrs BG and I were awoken by a blood curdling scream from her 7yr old son.

We ran through to the living room and were greeted by hundreds of baby spiders pouring out of the back of her TV.

"Grab the hoover!!!" shouted tstbmbg, in a state of panic/horrified stupor.

"No way, I'll get rid of them, you both go next door".

So I grabbed a tupperware box and collected as many of the little things as I could. They were very cute, yellow and extremely numerous.

As a bit of a hippy and general soft guy, I simply asked them if they would let me scoop them up so that I could find a better and more suitable place for them to live. Well I got around 75% of them, which I felt was quite good, taking natural mortality into account and let tstbmbg hoover the remaining ones up, whilst I relocated my container of little dudes into an old derelict greenhouse in the back garden.

I had a glowy feeling all day from that.
 
Recently discovered this son of an arachnid in my garage.

It started off on the wall on the left of the window and used to dart away into the dark whenever my car came in but I noticed the other day that it had migrated to the window.

I'm pretty sure it is a female and I'm pretty sure it has eaten the smaller (male ?) spider that used to live in the web in the window.

It is the biggest, fattest spider I've ever seen for myself and altho in some parts it is probably a tiddler it is big enough to scare the crap outta me!

I assume it is just a big house (or garage) spider but all the same I am not very keen on it.

WARNING FOR ARACHNOPHOBES! Spider photo imminent...











n579136351_3198427_2453263.jpg
 
Basic rule of thumb is leave spiders alone they'll leave you alone. Spiders are tremendously beneficial in preying on harmful and pestilent insects.

There's burrowing, web spinners, and wandering species. Really one shouldn't be concerned with web spinners because they have limited mobility, these kinds are often too vulnerable without their web canopies easy pickings for other predators. They're in a point of physical stasis unless their web is destroyed and forced to reconstruct one which may encourage abit of wandering.

I keep a Brazilian Salmon-Pink Birdeating Tarantula. Had her for about two years with a current legspan of 7.5". She is the second largest tarantula species in the world and a species that holds the world record as the heaviest species in the world. Quite an appetite, they have been likened to eight-legged garbage trucks, devouring anything it can overpower including small vertebrates.
 
_TMS_ said:
Can humans commune with all fauna, if we just have the will and the desire to do so?
Click to expand...

For many years now, I have been, and remain, convinced that animals perfectly understand my wife when she speaks to them in the Toysan dialect of the Guangdong Province of southern China.

Now, animals are quite responsive when she speaks to them in English, too, but when she speaks to them in Toysan they are essentially her minions.
 
Rare venomous spider bite spreads fear in southern France
Arachnophobia has gripped southeastern France after a pensioner suffered a near-lethal bite from a rare spider whose venom is said to be "as dangerous as a cobra's".
By Henry Samuel in Paris
Published: 6:45AM BST 31 Jul 2009

François Inderchit, 59, was settling down for his afternoon siesta earlier this month in Orange, in Vaucluse, and was bitten by something "a bit more violent than a mosquito" when he turned over in bed.

He saw that it was a spider and that he had killed it.

He noticed a little red mark but thought little of it. Later that evening, his teeth began to chatter, then he developed a high fever, vomiting and convulsions. The next morning his wife and daughter found him barely conscious and phoned for an ambulance.

Within 24 hours, a gaping, gangrenous wound six inches long, three inches wide and half an inch deep developed around the bite area on Mr Inderchit's right bicep. :shock:

If he had been left untreated for another two hours he would have died, doctors said.

Marseille's anti-poison unit told intensive care doctors that he had been bitten by the brown recluse spider, Loxosceles Reclusa – also known as the violin spider due to its shape and markings.

Rare in France, the species is native to the United States from the southern Midwest south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Reactions to bites can vary but the victims often develop a gangrenous ulcer that destroys soft tissue and may take months to heal.

"This is the only case of its kind I've seen in my career," said Doctor Jean-Michel Bruere from the Louis Giorgi hospital in Orange. He said his patient was "lucky" as if he had been bitten elsewhere he could have lost a limb, required plastic surgery or the venom could have reached a vital organ.

Police and veterinary authorities in the Vaucluse region sought to play down the incident, saying there was no conclusive proof that the wound had been caused by a spider, and that it was releasing no health warnings.

But Jacques Bellier, head of intensive care at Louis Giorgi, said: "For us it was caused by a spider bite." Doctors are due to perform a skin graft to cover the wound.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... rance.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top