Spider thread...the brown widow

back when i was a kid,our family had a run in with a black widow.i would just as soon not meet its cousin..lol

There's a garden spider on the corner of my front door.  I love having her there.  My friends and family (everyone except my mom) thinks I'm crazy for letting her survive.  If only they knew how miserable the world would be without the eight-legged kind.

Did you know our second-most poisonous spider, the red-back, is a strain of black widow that was introduced on building materials? They hang around houses, so they get killed, but the funnel webs are allowed to keep their holes on our property. Ironically, when someone in our house did get bitten by a spider, it happened to be a roaming female funnel web, not a red-back, which we seem to have a lot more of.

Spiders are funny things. I'm terrified of the non-poisonous huntsman spiders that come in the house from the bush because they're huge and speedy and unpredictable, but I haven't a problem with funnel webs, even though they're about the most poisonous spider in the world and they can bite through your toenail. [] I learnt that some funnel webs can live for 30 years. That's impressive!

Nice shot, by the way. []

I have a HUGE brown barn/garden spider that has been living above my art room door for the last fewmonths. I am not a big spider fan, but I have let Wilber live there undisturbed for awhile now!

AAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKK!  aaaaahhhhhhhhh!aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
 
Ew EWEWEW!  Chills.... ah, I have chills...

ORIGINAL: loveukaykay

AAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKK!  aaaaahhhhhhhhh!aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Ew EWEWEW!  Chills.... ah, I have chills...

 
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way! I knew what was going to be in this thread, but I had to open it anyway. And now I'm going to have nightmares!

ORIGINAL: corvus

Did you know our second-most poisonous spider, the red-back, is a strain of black widow that was introduced on building materials? They hang around houses, so they get killed, but the funnel webs are allowed to keep their holes on our property. Ironically, when someone in our house did get bitten by a spider, it happened to be a roaming female funnel web, not a red-back, which we seem to have a lot more of.

Spiders are funny things. I'm terrified of the non-poisonous huntsman spiders that come in the house from the bush because they're huge and speedy and unpredictable, but I haven't a problem with funnel webs, even though they're about the most poisonous spider in the world and they can bite through your toenail. [] I learnt that some funnel webs can live for 30 years. That's impressive!

Nice shot, by the way. []

Funnel webs are very scary!  In high school, someone had found one outside.  I know they are only native to Australia, but there was no doubt this was a funnel web.  My high school was very close to a college with a large entomology department, so maybe that??  I have no idea!  It was in my biology class and that thing was mean!  Someone used a pencil to move something in its cage and it bit the pencil....you could very easily see its fang marks!  I don't like any spiders and I just try to stay away from them.

Spiders are awesome! I have one that is attatched my electric meter next to my back door. His web is huge and he seems to be getting a healthy diet of bugs. I don't mind them, their kinda cute actually. I don't like them in my bedroom though that is slightly too creepy for me.

I went funnel web wrangling with a guy working on them one day. He was poking them into vials with twigs. I was taking apart a log while he was catching another one nearby and after a few minutes he says "This one just doesn't want to go in. She's getting quite angry." I turned around and watched her rearing up and trying to bite. They do that because their fangs are so long they need to rear up to get more power behind their strike. Anyway, eventually she struck the twig he was using to try to back her into the vial. It was about half the thickness of a pencil, but her fang went straight through it and out the other side. He was able to pick her up and shake her off into the vial. She sat in the bottom with beads of venom dripping off her fangs. It was a pretty nightmarish moment, but I learnt that day that funnel webs are formidable, but very slow and predictable. It's the speedy unpredictable spiders I hate. []

I don't care for spiders either, but they do catch the pesky bugs, so I leave them alone if they leave me alone. I hate creepy crawlies! When I took the girls out last night, I found a new member of our bug catching community.  We have lots of toads, tree frogs, lizards, and assorted small spiders that congregate around the living room window to eat the bugs that come to the light. But, this girl - she's new and HUGE (half dollar size)! But beautiful at the same time. She's a gorgeous green color, with wicked very spike-haired legs. As long as she stays outside, she's fine. I'll share the inside with the jumping spiders - grudgingly, but NOT her! Anyway, I thought I would share our new strange addition.