Some thoughts on spiders . . .

[JoB]

anonyme..

infested was my word.

the local spider lovers found more than one in the house and outbuildings and on the property.

they were tickled. i moved out.

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[JustSarah]

Anonyme, regarding the sticky tape: years ago, I had two pet mice that escaped from their “home” by chewing right through the lid. To recapture them, my parents put glue traps throughout the house and we checked them frequently. Sure enough, within a day they were both caught.

Now, those traps are very sticky and are generally a death sentence, but my mom poured just a bit of paint thinner on each trap (I bet acetone nail polish remover would work, too), and the glue dissolved away, freeing the mice. They were fine after a little washcloth bath to rub away any solvent trace.

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[anonyme]

SarahScoot: what a great idea and story! Good info for parents when the pocket pets (such as hamsters and geckos) go AWOL.

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[redblack]

i haven’t seen any discussion of the difference between house spiders and garden spiders, but i have read various posters complain of webs across walkways, etc.

this time of year, “orb weavers” of the neoscona variety are everywhere plants are. they live on smaller pests, and are highly beneficial to gardens. they build orb webs in the morning, and tear them down at night, eating the silk and any pests caught therein.

they are far different from hobos and wolf spiders, who don’t make webs of any kind, but prefer to hide in dark, dry corners and wait for pests to wander by – or feast off of the carcasses of other dead hobos.

indoors or outdoors, though, they both eat smaller things that are far more destructive in aggregate.

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[LisaM]

I have a very large orb spider that has taken up residence under my patio umbrella that I now call “Scary Spice”. It’s really fascinating to watch it weave a new web each evening, eat all the bugs that would prob end up in my house, and sleep under the umbrella all day.

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[EmmyJane]

I walked through an orb’s web the other day and in my swatting to get the spider off my face, I hit my glasses off. Then while performing my best “spider dance” (you know, waving your arms around as fast as you can and randomly hitting yourself hoping that if there is a spider on you it will get knocked off) without any vision left I stepped on my glasses. Glasses ended up bent, scratched, and chipped. Spider-1. Holly-0.

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[JoB]

emmyjane

LOL.. i can relate.

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[linda]

From the Washington Post Style invitational:

Arachnoleptic fit: The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web. This is how I now do my daily aerobics on the way to the car.(http://alphavocabadorka.tribe.net/thread/2f0ffabd-b442-449e-b48b-bb343f876e1f)

By the way: two giant house spiders owe their lives to this post (or maybe one who is really getting around the house). I spotted one in the basement and one in the stairwell near the second floor and refrained from killing both. I’m hoping these guys are keeping down the population of my other house spiders. Those guys look like the outside zebra spiders (without the white stripes) on steroids: dark brown almost black and about an inch long. And definitely not black widows, too “flat”.

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[GoGo]

Emmyjane, thanks for the laugh! You and I do the same dance, but thankfully I haven’t knocked my glasses off (yet).

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[anonyme]

EJ & Linda, you crack me up. If it’s any reassurance at all, even arachnophiles do the dance. I like to keep a bamboo stick by the door for web-whacking through the garden in the morning.

redblack: To my knowledge, we do not have Neoscona in western Washington. The orb-weavers (a generic term representing nearly 3,000 species worldwide)we see around here are predominantly Araneus diadematus. All spiders utilize silk, but the hunting spiders such as Lycosidae (wolf spiders) don’t usually use webs for prey capture. Wolf spiders are active hunters with fair vision. A smallish black wolf spider of the genus Pardosa is very common in yards around Seattle. The wood chips in my garden are teeming with them.

I’m not aware of spiders that routinely consume dead carcasses. However, a small jumping spider was discovered last year to be mostly (70%) vegetarian, feeding primarily on grain.

Amazing.

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[DP]

The Arachnoleptic Waltz

Wrong:

Right:

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[Idaho]

O.K. This is my first post. I have read the previous posts and was wondering if anyone has ever been bitten by a Hobo spider or any other kind. About 2 weeks ago I woke up with a bite on my left leg (about 1/2 way down on my calf muscle) It didn’t hurt right away, but later I got pretty sick. I don’t know if it was bad timing and I was going to get sick anyway, but I thought that it could have been caused by the spider bite. The sore is about the size of a quarter and is still red and tender and kind of hard around it. The skin around the area is starting to peel or slough away. It has not been properly diagnosed by a physician, but I captured a spider in my bedroom today and I am trying to find a place to take it to be properly identified. But I have no way of knowing if it is the actual spider that bit me. So, I was hoping someone might have had a past experience that sounds comparable. I just would know to satisfy my own curiosity.

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[anonyme]

Welcome, Idaho.

It is very difficult to diagnose a spider bite, and almost impossible to identify the spider unless you actually saw it bite you. Most bites are automatically (and often erroneously) blamed on spiders, even by physicians. Remember, physicians are not arachnologists and most are not qualified to identify spider species.

I think it’s wise of you to consider that a) you may have gotten sick for some other reason, and b)there is probably no connection between the spider in your room and the bite on your leg. I’ve raised and handled literally thousands of spiders and only been bitten once, while gardening. I will tell you that your bite sounds exactly like mine; not much itching, but hard and raised. My bite had to be lanced and developed a staph infection, so keep an eye on it.

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[miws]

I used to be incredibly creeped out by spiders, and other crawly bugs. Pretty much to the point that I want to keep an eye on them until I can figure out a way to remove them.

Basic houseflies, and bees bother me in a different way. Flies annoy me, because I just know their most recent place to visit before landing on me was a pile of dog dooky, and bees bother because they sting (although I’m not allergic AFAIK).

Then, relatively recently, like a couple of years or so ago, I seemed to lose that irrational fear of the crawly ones. I don’t want to pet them and cuddle them, but don’t totally freak out internally and/or externally, like I did for the first 50-ish years of my life.

For around the last month or so, I’ve been visited by those weird bugs I can only describe as flying beetles with long antennae. Quite often they are on the outside or inside of my window screens (apartment has the outward opening casement windows, with inside mounted screens). I usually grab the flyswatter, and smack the screen so that they fly, fly away, if on the outside of the screen, or smack ’em dead if on the inside of the screen, or window.

Last evening, sitting here at the computer, a bug buzzed by my face. At first, I perceived it as being no larger than a housefly. I cussed at it, and swatted at it with my hand, and felt it brush against the inside of my arm, as it landed upside down on the desk on it’s back, it’s little tiny legs moving back and forth like it’s wingless beetle buddies. Sufficiently creeped out I jumped up and tried to figure out what to do about it. The thought of smashing all over the desk with the flyswatter bothered me, as did the thought of grabbing it in a towel/paper towel.

So, I went with the old standby I hadn’t used in ages; grabbed the vacuum out of the closet, unwound the cord and plugged it in, fired up that 12 amps, and vacuumed him right off the desk!

Mike

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[JanS]

haha, Mike..Yes, don’t sully the desk. :)

I cant even get my cat to go after them. Picky, picky !!!

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[miws]

Too bad bugs aren’t catnip scented! ;-)

Mike

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[JanS]

mike, he doesn’t even like catnip…go figure !

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[miws]

Hmmm….maybe it’s time to have a little chat with him.

Remind him his name is Leo, which means “lion”, and that lion’s are very protective of their dens, and the pride within, bravely defending from any threatening intruders.

Mike

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[JanS]

I think the spiders and other little creepies are safe ;-)

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[JoB]

the rain didn’t do them in…

maybe the cold will

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[JanS]

despite what others have said on here, I have no problem whacking them :)

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[JoB]

if they don’t get out of my face.. literally.. soon.. there are going to be a lot of dead spiders at my house.

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[Tish]

Does anyone know of good a website that I can go to that includes the names and pictures of the most common spiders in Seattle or the Pacific Northwest?

I found a spider inside my house (crawling in the bathroom, to be more specific) that I can’t identify. Any idea what it is?

Sorry for not being able to take a clearer picture!

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[shed22]

Is it just my perception or is that spider HUGE??

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[guidosmom]

Wow! That looks huge! It almost looks like a beetle. I usually go to: http://www.insectidentification.org/spiders.asp

but don’t see anything that looks like that. You are very brave. :)

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[Author]

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