Weird arthropod.

[Gargamel]

Today, I saw a black widow web in an aloe plant out on my porch. I went out at night with a flashlight to spray it. I did and then I saw something that looked like the pic below crawling up a stucco wall. I captured it with the glass jar and piece of paper trick. I've never seen anything like it. It has some little pincher looking things at the front of its head and it was cleaning off its legs in its fangs. It has some relatively big *** fangs and I'd hate to get bitten by it.

Turns out, it's called a harvestman. It's an arachnid, a relative to spiders, but the only difference is that its body has one segment instead of three. They're nocturnal and they scale walls and trees looking for bugs. They have venom, but it's harmless to humans.

Anyone ever seen any bug like this (or weirder) where you live? Anyone have an irrational fear of bugs? If so, preach.

[edit] - this is a better pic. It looked closer to this. Long, whispy legs, gray in color, and it was cleaning its legs in its fangs like this little guy. I released him today. Happy hunting, harvestman!

 

[GoGoGadget]

Anyone have an irrational fear of bugs?

Yes. Spiders particularly, but I'm not thrilled with any bugs. Since (aside from pollination) I've never been given a single reason for their existence OTHER than to eliminate other species of insects, I really don't know why they're here. Purely to torture me, I'm sure.

I've been known to create elaborate traps to keep especially large spiders in one place long enough to get someone else to kill them. I'm worried that I won't kill them, I'll just make them angry enough to form a posse and sneak into my bedroom at night for revenge.

I don't even go into my own garage any more because I saw a black widow and an egg sack about a year and a half ago. I don't really have any reason to go in there (my garage seems to be a storage area for various family members) but if I did have anything of mine in there, I'd have given it up -- clearly the widows want it more than I do. Everyone tells me, "Oh. Its no big deal. Just get a can of bug spray and take care of it." I keep trying to explain that bug spray isn't effective from 30' away, but they don't listen.

Also, I can't kill bugs of a certain size. Can't even step on a bug if its big enough to feel or hear the crunch. I once sucked up a big, BIG spider in a canister vacuum and felt it go up the tube -- thought I was going to perish right then and there. Heebie jeebies somethin' fierce.

Also, you people have got to stop posting pictures of icky bugs, and I have damn sure got to stop looking at them.

 

[Bricklayer]

Ok, my two best bug stories (lengthy so that they have context):

First, a disclaimer. I do not like insects, but my fear of bugs is pretty much in direct proportion to their ability to actually harm me. Which is to say mostly anything that flies and stings (I am no fan of black widows either, but so long as they stay in their web, and I stay away from their web, we are cool). And I am a fan of an aggressive defense -- as in see wasp, squash wasp. BTW, I should note that I had an apartment in Philly for two years in a newly renovated (at the time) building called Locust Point where in two years of living I had exactly FOUR (4) total insects total ever discovered inside the apartment. Remarkable (and lovely).


So, story #1:

Anyway, in Philly, where they grow 'em big: my senior year at Penn, lived with 7 frat guys in an off campus house. Actually only 5 of them were in the frat, the other three of us were just friends needed to fill out the house roster. Gorgeous house BTW -- Michael Milikin's (the billionaire junk bond king) son had lived there the year before and had spent some godawful amount of money renovating the place and putting in beautiful tiled floors, thick stained glass windows, polished wood, new appliances etc.) -- but it was NOT bug proof. So one lovely spring day, noonish, I am hanging in my room with one of the housemates (who had just got done smoking enough weed down the hall that you could have got high off his breath), + the window is open (second story, but still barred because this is West Philly, but the bars are maybe 4-6 inches apart) and suddenly in through the window buzzes the biggest damn bumblebee I had ever seen in my life. Housemate, brave stoned soul that he was, took off running and yelling down the hall. But of course its my room, so I can't (if I leave, how can I ever return and be sure its not lurking). And what follows is a hilarious half hour long battle between me and the bumblebee in which I am halfway out in the hall with a towel to flick at it, dirty laundry (balled up socks etc.) and pelting the hell out of this damn insect trying to convince it to vacate the premises. It was HUGE. Landed on a lamp I had in there, and I'm not exaggerating, was almost as big as the head of the lightbulb (broke the lamp when I through a sock at it too). So the bee would get pissed, fly at me, and I'd swing the door shut, then I'd swing it back open after it veered off and throw another smelly sock at it. FINALLY convinced the damn thing to leave + didn't open that window again until another misadventure, this time with a girl I really liked near finals...but that's off topic.

Story 2: Same house, some 4 months later. Remember 7 other guys in the house, basically an off campus frat house in a lot of ways (and held a lot of basically frat parties there) -- cleanliness is NOT a virtue in that place. So we get a roach infestation. And I mean INFESTATION. And when you have roaches in Philly, you have to watch out that they don't eat YOU. There are streets in West Philly where late at night huge roaches the size of small housecats and resembling Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches roam the streets moving from one garbage pile to another. So anyway, the infestation gets bad, and then all my jackass roomates take off for the summer. Well, I'm paid up through the summer, its a nice place, I stay on prepping for law school. With the roaches. No huge deal for me since I have long ago written off the kitchen and become self sufficient in my room (when you can see the roaches moving around inside the microwave because they blot out the digital readout you know you have an issue). But that girl is still there, and I am inviting her over more and more often. And it is a cool place. And we've still got the ping pong table upstairs (ever play strip ping pong....er...anyway ) and before too long other scattered friends and acquaintances stuck in Philly for the summer, summer school etc. start hanging out. So one night, 8-10 people over, including the girl of course, and we're standing around the ping pong table (which is located upstairs in the kitchen (which is large)). Forget who was playing. Not important. Ball gets spiked off the table, + I move to catch it before it rolls over the balcony and falls into the living room below. And as I reach down darting out from underneath one of the kitchen counters is a roach the size of my damn hand. And my hand ain't small. It is so damn big that you can clearly hear it scuttling. Well, I let out a girlish yelp, then another when I slammed my head on the bottom of the ping pong table from jerking upright, and since I had bare feet as well I concluded my undignified response by hopping up onto the kitchen counter so the damn thing wouldn't crawl up my foot. Eveyrone had a good laugh until the thing ran out the other side of the table where they could see it and THEN there was lots of running and screaming. Since there was nothing handy to munch it with, and everyone with shoes on had run off down the hall, I just sat there, let the thing survey the air with its not so little antennae, and then turn and saunter leisurely back underneath the counter. Never did see it again. Then again, really didn't use the kitchen much at ALL after that. And certainly not barefoot.

 

[Crvena Zvezda]

Man I'm SO scared of spiders it's not funny. I could barley look at that picture. Actually to be honest i didn't even look at the picture properly. To bad I live in Australia we have so many spiders especially poisenous ones.

 

[Alacron]

I'm not a fan of the arthropods, and spiders especially. I want them all to die.

Black widows are thriving in the Sacramento area, and is there any scarier damn thing in the world?? There are several widow experiences I could recount, including the time I found one crawling up the shower wall... while I was in the shower...

But this is the one that gave me post-traumatic stress disorder. For certain reasons, we had a couple ditches in our backyard that we had covered with large wooden covers, about two feet square. For certain other reasons, the time came to remove these covers. Ever wary of horrible things lurking in dark places, I used a shovel to flip one over. The next few seconds were like a nightmare. I always thought widows were solitary creatures... I never knew they could live in FRIGGIN' COLONIES. Dozens of huge adult black widows scattered over the surface of the board. I stared for a moment in sick horror before grabbing a can of Raid and bringing about the Spider Holocaust.

I've got a pretty good snail story, too. I was visiting my cousins in Los Angeles when I was about 15, and one evening we noticed there were a lot of snails out. So the four of us took a pizza box and started collecting as many as we could find, and before long we had 164 snails in the box, which was now as heavy as it had been when the pizza was in it. We then consigned groups of our captives to various fates, such as:

- Crushing by foot
- Classic salt meltdown
- Eyestalks cut off with scissors
- Put in bag with lit firecracker
- Placed on ground, surrounded by circle of salt... they can't jump, you know
- Heated in pie pan over fire

Okay, call me sadistic, but karma got me back the next day when our car rolled over on the freeway coming back home. The universe is balanced again.
~~

 

[Alacron]

Man I'm SO scared of spiders it's not funny. I could barley look at that picture. Actually to be honest i didn't even look at the picture properly. To bad I live in Australia we have so many spiders especially poisenous ones.

I hear the funnel-web's jaws have the strength to bite through a human toenail. Well, goodnight.
~~

 

[Gargamel]

But this is the one that gave me post-traumatic stress disorder. For certain reasons, we had a couple ditches in our backyard that we had covered with large wooden covers, about two feet square. For certain other reasons, the time came to remove these covers. Ever wary of horrible things lurking in dark places, I used a shovel to flip one over. The next few seconds were like a nightmare. I always thought widows were solitary creatures... I never knew they could live in FRIGGIN' COLONIES. Dozens of huge adult black widows scattered over the surface of the board. I stared for a moment in sick horror before grabbing a can of Raid and bringing about the Spider Holocaust.

Yeah, cue the Pyscho theme when you turned over that board. They are solitary and skiddish, but they probably couldn't "balloon" out of that pit when an egg sac hatched. My old house had a separate stucco tool house with wooden doors and every time you'd open them, the inside of the doors would have two or three of them and you could hear their webs ripping as you opened the doors. We'd have to fog that shed periodically because they'd take a foothold.

I've had two situtations where I nearly clasped a black widow. We have tons of them where we live. I've killed them in every conceivable place. Couple months ago, I stepped on one that got into the kitchen. Anyway, when I was about 17 or so, I had to do yardwork and take the trash out to the curb. I was about to lug a plastic garbage can back to the side of the house. It had a web in the handle with some lawn clippings stuck to it. I knew that didn't look good so I used the other handle. Later on, I passed by and there was a gigantic widow rebuilding its web from the handle all the way to the cement (the bigger the web, usually the bigger the spider). I'm glad I thought to use the other handle.

The other incident was when I was in college. I had a painting class and we came back from Winter break. There were a bunch of student paintings leaning against the wall from the floor. I turned some of them around to look at them and one of them was hard to flip around. I took a closer look and a widow scurried out over the top of the painting where I had my fingers. My fingertips went into its web. Apparently, it got into the class and built a web between the painting and the wall. I did a quick retract of my hand and the painting fell and squished the spider. It's legs twiched for a second.

Those are nothing though, spider-haters. You don't know terror until you have to spray a yellow jacket nest from under an eave. Better have your track shoes on.

 

[SLAB]

I've had one traumatic incident with a spider before.

Okay, me and my friend were fishing in our lake, (I live on a private ski lake shared by the other 16 householders) I was shoeless and was chillin on the bank with no worries at all. After about a half-an-hour of no actioan at all, my friend decides it would be fun to start flipping over the rocks on the bank to see what underneath. We found a variety of cool things, but over by a tree there's this ditch filled with big rocks. He decides it would be fun to lift those. As we get deeper there's a whole lot of web, and at one point we think we see some scattered mouse bones. Now I'm kind of nervous something might have slipped out of there, and being shoeless and fretting my foot may be considered an enemy. My friend, now using a stick to get deeper is still standing over the ditch, flipping rocks out. I find two pretty big rocks over in the distance, and bring them over to stand on. No longer than a minute later a HUGE spider comes darting out of his hole. The thing was a monster! I ran off like a baby, as I had no shoes and he blended perfectly with the long dead grass. My friend wasn't far behind either. once we get some 50 yards away we still wanted to know what the damn thing was, sohe goes back, equiped with rocks to throw at the potential danger, but we couldn't find him.

 

[HndsmCelt]

First let me make it clear that I am not afraid of bugs including spiders. I have a healthy respect for black widows but living on/around farms in the valley I have been around them my whole life and I live with teh knowlage that they do in fact reside in my garage, and under the hard wood floors of my 1940's bungalo.

Here is my BIG spiders story: When I was younger and more rugged (early 20's) I decided that carrying a tent back packing was extra weight and basicly for wussies. I would sleep under the stars like a man. In the Siera Nevada the amout of bugs decline inversly to elevation, that is the higher you get the fewer they are, so from 7,000 feet up it gets MUCH less buggy in the summers. So one spring I get ready for my first trip of the season and beceause of snow at low elevations (much like this year) I decide to camp in lower elevations arround/under 5,000 feet in Kings Canyon National park. It was prety warm the first few days but then it got relay cold, so I am now sleeping with full thermals, wool socks and a stocking cap, at this time I did not have much money, so I was using one of those inexpensive retangular shaped bags. About 4 am I wake up with the usual full bladder and I feel two disticnt and distrubing things. One is a sticky substance INSIDE my sleeping bag, My original fear is that said substance had emmited from me, then I feel the furry wiggleing. I nealy peed my underwear and had the zipper down and was out of the bag shreiking like a banchie in seconds. There in my bag were, I kid you not, at least a dozen trantulas varring in size and collor 4in to 10in across brown, black and a curiously blonde/albino looking one. I had rolled on several of them and crushed them in my sleep. Aparently they are VERY efective at finding warmth and it was the breeding season. So once the tempeture got down near freezing my sleeping bag became a trantual love nest. If you have seen a trantual up close they realy are cool but ultimalty they are BIG furry, ugly looking spiders.

Well that night I could not sleep and I stayed up all night cleaning the sleeping bag and building up a monster camp fire to "scare away the spiders" as if. the next two days it took me to get back to my truck I barely slept. Needless to say that was the last time I went up with out a tent, infact I have 3 of them now. Oh yeah I actualy threw that sleeping bag out, I just could not bring my self to use it again.

 

[Bricklayer]

Now here's a philosophical question -- but why are humans afraid of spiders? There are only a handful of deadly spiders in the entire world. It doesn't seem rational that we would have developed an instinctive fear of something that was highly unlikely to be the cause of death or even pain in a person. Yet we react to them almost like prey would (I mush them myself, but even that shows that I dislike them). Why? Is that just a learned/taught reaction? Maybe just an instinct to keep primitive humans from trying to eat them (and ingesting the poison of even relatively innocuous breeds)? I get why we instinctively fear bees/wasps -- cause pain, and the whole coloration scheme is a giant warning to other animals. More than enough deadly snakes too top justify instinctual fear. But spiders...

 

[Gargamel]

Now here's a philosophical question -- but why are humans afraid of spiders? There are only a handful of deadly spiders in the entire world. It doesn't seem rational that we would have developed an instinctive fear of something that was highly unlikely to be the cause of death or even pain in a person. Yet we react to them almost like prey would (I mush them myself, but even that shows that I dislike them). Why? Is that just a learned/taught reaction? Maybe just an instinct to keep primitive humans from trying to eat them (and ingesting the poison of even relatively innocuous breeds)? I get why we instinctively fear bees/wasps -- cause pain, and the whole coloration scheme is a giant warning to other animals. More than enough deadly snakes too top justify instinctual fear. But spiders...

I think it's probably most related to the way they move: quickly, fluidly, and with 8 legs. They also tend to hide in clothes, shoes, etc. They also crawl around at night and it messes with peoples' minds to think of being preyed upon while they're asleep (see: macho Celt turning banshee due to harmless tarantulas). Matter of fact, many bites from brown recluses and black widows happen in bed. They get in bed and instinctively bite down when pressure is applied to them.

You also hear exaggerated horror stories about the species that are poisonous. More people die from bee stings every year (and probably ant stings as well). However, bees and ants don't seem to resonate as much fear as spiders. Perhaps that's because bees and ants are "daytime" creatures and aren't viewed as "sneaky".

 

[HndsmCelt]

Now here's a philosophical question -- but why are humans afraid of spiders? There are only a handful of deadly spiders in the entire world. It doesn't seem rational that we would have developed an instinctive fear of something that was highly unlikely to be the cause of death or even pain in a person. Yet we react to them almost like prey would (I mush them myself, but even that shows that I dislike them). Why? Is that just a learned/taught reaction? Maybe just an instinct to keep primitive humans from trying to eat them (and ingesting the poison of even relatively innocuous breeds)? I get why we instinctively fear bees/wasps -- cause pain, and the whole coloration scheme is a giant warning to other animals. More than enough deadly snakes too top justify instinctual fear. But spiders...

I think that is a question for anthropologists not philosophers. Got me a degree in that philosophy stuff and we never covered arachnidphobia. Maybe it is a very primitive fear of things we can not quickly identify... prety usfull trait. I know that normaly spiders are facinaitng to me not scary... snakes that is another story altogether. I could always relate to Indiana Jones "I hate snakes. even snakes I KNOW are harmless I just do not even wnat to look at much less touch.

 

[Bricklayer]

Matter of fact, many bites from brown recluses and black widows happen in bed. They get in bed and instinctively bite down when pressure is applied to them.

I have no idea what a black widow would be doing in bed, being loner web builders who favor dry quiet deserted places and really don't like being disturbed, but it makes a good horror story.

BTW, for the men out there -- anybody know the common side effect of a black widow bite in healthy males (their bites are rarely fatal except ot the very young or very old)? Its a hoot!

 

[Prophetess]

That of the more venomous black widow causes generalized muscular pains and spasms, and rigidity.


i'm not male but i can guess...personally spiders don't bother me...but it is freaky when you wake up to find one crawling on you.

 

[HndsmCelt]

I have no idea what a black widow would be doing in bed, being loner web builders who favor dry quiet deserted places and really don't like being disturbed, but it makes a good horror story.

BTW, for the men out there -- anybody know the common side effect of a black widow bite in healthy males (their bites are rarely fatal except ot the very young or very old)? Its a hoot!

I do know one guy who was bitten by a black widdow... and yes he was in bed and no this is not a bad joke. He was however living in his mothers garage. If I remember right the symptoms were feaver, redeing and swelling of the bite area and vomiting. It was 24 hrs before he went to the hospita beceause he thought it was flue or hang over. If remember right he becema concerned when he could not get a beer down.

 

[Alacron]

I think that is a question for anthropologists not philosophers. Got me a degree in that philosophy stuff and we never covered arachnidphobia. Maybe it is a very primitive fear of things we can not quickly identify... prety usfull trait. I know that normaly spiders are facinaitng to me not scary... snakes that is another story altogether. I could always relate to Indiana Jones "I hate snakes. even snakes I KNOW are harmless I just do not even wnat to look at much less touch.

I am genuinely arachnophobic but oddly enough, I don't mind snakes at all. In fact, I have an interesting snake-spider story...

Under a workbench in my backyard I saw something wriggling in midair, hovering... upon closer inspection I realized it was a small garden snake caught in a black widow web. He must have been crawling on the ground, gone through the web, and as he tried to shake free of the sticky substance, he gradually wound the web around himself tighter and tighter. The snake must have been struggling there for several hours, because he was a good foot off the ground and looked like a mummy. It was wrapped so tight that the web was actually cutting into the snake's skin, and he was bleeding.

So I took him down, got a pair of scissors and tweezers and set about unwrapping him. About an inch from his tail the web had cut deeply, and I was afraid he might not recover. But after working on him for about an hour I set him free in the grass...

You'd think that would be the end of it, but a couple months later I was emptying the pool filter basket. I removed the cover and saw a tail sticking out from the crevice on the side. I pulled out the snake, and yes, he had the scar on his tail, but he'd regained full use of it. I saved that little guy twice!
~~

 

[Alacron]

BTW, for the men out there -- anybody know the common side effect of a black widow bite in healthy males (their bites are rarely fatal except ot the very young or very old)? Its a hoot!

I understand they're researching widow venom as the new Viagra.

And for the record, Celt has the worst horror story here ... that's why I always bring a tent backpacking.
~~

 

[Bricklayer]

I understand they're researching widow venom as the new Viagra.

Bingo! A "priapism". Nature's viagra. (something like 24 hrs straight (no pun intended) )


Why do I suddenly have images of male board members across the Western United States suddenly wandering into their garages, barns and sheds and sticking thier hands into every dark corner.

 

[Gargamel]

I have no idea what a black widow would be doing in bed, being loner web builders who favor dry quiet deserted places and really don't like being disturbed, but it makes a good horror story.

When people leave blankets outside to dry and one crawls on it and they take it inside with them. Or when they get in a house seeking warmth and crawl into a bed. There was a National Geographic show about b-dubbs and had a victim who did the blanket thing. He had a severe envenomation because it bit him on his chest close to the heart and it kept pumping in venom because it was trapped under a sheet. Similarly, many bites happen when sticking feet into shoes left outdoors or putting on clothes left outdoors where the spider has hidden.

http://www.mymegaweb.com/peru/images/black widow spider.jpg

 

[SIR HENRY 8]

I think that is a question for anthropologists not philosophers. Got me a degree in that philosophy stuff and we never covered arachnidphobia. Maybe it is a very primitive fear of things we can not quickly identify... prety usfull trait. I know that normaly spiders are facinaitng to me not scary... snakes that is another story altogether. I could always relate to Indiana Jones "I hate snakes. even snakes I KNOW are harmless I just do not even wnat to look at much less touch.

SNAKES run as fast as you can,snakes are my biggest fear,the only good snake ( good snake?) is a dead one!

 

[GoGoGadget]

Bingo! A "priapism". Nature's viagra. (something like 24 hrs straight (no pun intended) )


Why do I suddenly have images of male board members across the Western United States suddenly wandering into their garages, barns and sheds and sticking thier hands into every dark corner.

Funny.

I suddenly have bad funk music running through my head and a plan to booby trap my garage before contacting some unsuspecting exterminator to take care of my nasty little problem.

 

[GoGoGadget]

Since I'm getting ready to go to New Orleans, and we're discussing bug problems, I began thinking of a most dastardly enemy -- the palmetto bug. For those of you not familiar with the lovely southern bug, they are related to roaches, extremely large, and they fly. Truly charming.

Last time I was in New Orleans, I tagged along with my father when he went for a conference. We stayed in a suite in funky old hotel in the French Quarter that was clean and nice, but suffering the fate of a century old building in a damp climate -- the floor-to-ceiling triple-hung windows that went out the balcony were never quite closed all the way.

Since I was mooching the free trip to N'Awlins, Dad took the bedroom, and I took the sofa bed in the living room. I thought this was lovely, of course, because it meant that I had the balcony overlooking Royal St. all to myself every morning.

It also meant, however, that I got to bunk in the same room as those not so air-tight windows.

On the fourth night that we were there, I woke up to a strange tickle on my leg. I didn't think anything of it, at first, because I was pretty much still asleep. I reached down to scratch my leg, but the tickle persisted. I glanced at my leg hoping for an explanation, and the light from the TV was enough to see a HUGE palmetto bug crawling up my leg. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I Went to knock it away, but couldn't move. Even though the thing was on me, the thought of intentionally touching it was far too disgusting. I decided to blow at it, ya know, just to scare it. It worked. It started flying around the room -- not what I planned -- disappearing and reappearing in the flickering light from the television.

My solution? Throw stuff at it. Pillows, couch cushions, balled up plastic bags from the gift shops -- I was an assassin perched atop my sofa bed safe zone ready to throw anything and everything within reach at this monster each time it was foolish enough to fly into the light. I hit it with a couch cusion, at one point, and took away its ability to fly and kicked a wing back chair over on top of it when it crawled into position.

After a few moments without any signs of life, I crawled very gingerly out of my bed, went to my suitcase, put on jeans, a t-shirt, socks and sneakers, got back into bed and wrapped myself like a mummy from head to toe in the sheet.

I woke up that morning to find my father standing in the balcony doorway surveying the living room, sipping coffee and calmly awaiting an explanation. He still teases me in public for being a humongous wimp, but was impressed with my valor when he found my foe lying dead on the ground.

 

[slugking50]

I've had one traumatic incident with a spider before.

Okay, me and my friend were fishing in our lake, (I live on a private ski lake shared by the other 16 householders) I was shoeless and was chillin on the bank with no worries at all. After about a half-an-hour of no actioan at all, my friend decides it would be fun to start flipping over the rocks on the bank to see what underneath. We found a variety of cool things, but over by a tree there's this ditch filled with big rocks. He decides it would be fun to lift those. As we get deeper there's a whole lot of web, and at one point we think we see some scattered mouse bones. Now I'm kind of nervous something might have slipped out of there, and being shoeless and fretting my foot may be considered an enemy. My friend, now using a stick to get deeper is still standing over the ditch, flipping rocks out. I find two pretty big rocks over in the distance, and bring them over to stand on. No longer than a minute later a HUGE spider comes darting out of his hole. The thing was a monster! I ran off like a baby, as I had no shoes and he blended perfectly with the long dead grass. My friend wasn't far behind either. once we get some 50 yards away we still wanted to know what the damn thing was, sohe goes back, equiped with rocks to throw at the potential danger, but we couldn't find him.

You should be more worried about 3 eyed crappie. I caught one there about 17 years ago.

I fished there as a kid. I always thought id catch a 3 eyed fish there with all the motor oil thats been dumped there by ski boats over the years..lol That was my goal.

 

[RoyalDiva]

Now here's a philosophical question -- but why are humans afraid of spiders? There are only a handful of deadly spiders in the entire world. It doesn't seem rational that we would have developed an instinctive fear of something that was highly unlikely to be the cause of death or even pain in a person. Yet we react to them almost like prey would (I mush them myself, but even that shows that I dislike them). Why? Is that just a learned/taught reaction? Maybe just an instinct to keep primitive humans from trying to eat them (and ingesting the poison of even relatively innocuous breeds)? I get why we instinctively fear bees/wasps -- cause pain, and the whole coloration scheme is a giant warning to other animals. More than enough deadly snakes too top justify instinctual fear. But spiders...

Well, I am deathly scared of spiders because they are creepy-crawly. And the whole thing with some of them being very poisonous. My worst experience was when my mom bought a used hot tub that was shipped to our house, complete with a small infestation of black widows. And having a pet cat at the time made me even more afraid for her as well. I have no idea if black widows are toxic to pets, but I'm not taking any chances. So I didn't have a problem with killing the little bastards (the spiders, not the pets) with Raid when I ran across them in the garage. It takes at least half a can of Raid to kill each widow, you just keep spraying and they keep twitching for awhile.

Also the worst is when spiders web in your shower, which they seem to do frequently in my experiences. You have to take a shower, but there's one right in the corner way up high and you can't knock it down without it coming down on your head....ughh.

My most important requirement for future boyfriends is that they kill spiders. If they're chicken as well, then under no circumstances will I date them.

 

[RoyalDiva]

I am genuinely arachnophobic but oddly enough, I don't mind snakes at all. In fact, I have an interesting snake-spider story...

Under a workbench in my backyard I saw something wriggling in midair, hovering... upon closer inspection I realized it was a small garden snake caught in a black widow web. He must have been crawling on the ground, gone through the web, and as he tried to shake free of the sticky substance, he gradually wound the web around himself tighter and tighter. The snake must have been struggling there for several hours, because he was a good foot off the ground and looked like a mummy. It was wrapped so tight that the web was actually cutting into the snake's skin, and he was bleeding.

So I took him down, got a pair of scissors and tweezers and set about unwrapping him. About an inch from his tail the web had cut deeply, and I was afraid he might not recover. But after working on him for about an hour I set him free in the grass...

You'd think that would be the end of it, but a couple months later I was emptying the pool filter basket. I removed the cover and saw a tail sticking out from the crevice on the side. I pulled out the snake, and yes, he had the scar on his tail, but he'd regained full use of it. I saved that little guy twice!
~~

Awww.....that is such a sweet story! Although I am afraid of spiders, I have no fear of reptiles. Actually I think they're pretty neat creatures.

 

[rhuber]

I’ve always thought the whole scary spider thing was a trained behavior on our part. We grow up with horror stories about Little Miss Muffet, we’ve watched adults and peers scream and scammer at the sight up them… so naturally we grow up learning to fear them. I have 4 older sisters who all but had me convinced that spiders do in fact eat small animals and children.

It wasn’t until I was in my 20’s that my fear of spiders just sort of went away. I think that’s because I reluctantly took up gardening, and in my neck of the woods… that means hangin’ out with lots of spiders. The big fat tarantula looking things still freak me out, but otherwise I guess I’ve just learned to cohabitate. Even Black Widows don’t seem to bother me too much. I live in an area where black widows are virtually everywhere. That said, in my 40 years, I’ve only personally known one person to get bit by one, and he was a friend when I was a teenager – he saw the black widow and thought it would be funny if he quickly ‘poked at it’ with his finger. The spider ran… so he poked it again. It seems the patience of the black widow only extends so far… the last time he drew his finger back, the widow was firmly wrapped around the tip – biting the proverbial hell out of it. He went to the doctor, but in the end, his finger turned red, and he said his wrist hurt like hell within about 10-20 minutes or so after the bite… but that was pretty much it. But my point is, in the thousands if not millions of combined black widow encounters of all those that I know, the only story I have of anyone ever actually getting bit, was the idiot who aggressively extended an invitation… twice.

Wasps, on the other hand, I’ve learned to fear. I’ve always thought of them like bees (just let them do their thing and they’re happy). A few years ago I got my first lesson in the differences. I had a few wasp nests tucked back under the awning of a detached garage. They never bothered me much, so I just let them be – they’re just like bee’s… right? One day, just after dusk, I walk to my garage, and a wasp slams me right in the back of the neck (they don’t just land and sting you… they hit with full force). I felt the dull sting on the back of my neck, but realized he was still inside my t-shirt. I threw my shirt off as I darted into the garage… but got nailed by TWO MORE wasps on my way in. Now these were paper wasps, and I don’t really know how their stings compare to others… but the stings start with a sharp flick on the skin, and start heating up gradually until it just plain burns. The funny thing is, at least with me, is that the discomfort peaks in about 3-5 minutes and then fades away just as quickly. I’m guessing that’s a very relative thing though. But, long story long… I’m a full-fledged killer of wasps now.

 

[quick dog]

You guys give me the creeps!

 

[Gargamel]

Wasps, on the other hand, I’ve learned to fear. I’ve always thought of them like bees (just let them do their thing and they’re happy). A few years ago I got my first lesson in the differences. I had a few wasp nests tucked back under the awning of a detached garage. They never bothered me much, so I just let them be – they’re just like bee’s… right? One day, just after dusk, I walk to my garage, and a wasp slams me right in the back of the neck (they don’t just land and sting you… they hit with full force). I felt the dull sting on the back of my neck, but realized he was still inside my t-shirt.

I've been hit on the neck by a wasp before. I suspect that they actually bite in addition to stinging, because I felt it hit me, but it left a scrape with no pain or swelling that you'd feel from a bee sting. It didn't really hurt beyond 5-10 minutes.

I said in a previous post that it's nervous-time when you have to spray a wasp nest. They aren't like bees. They'll come after you on GPs.