Thread: Spiders!

I have always been fascinated by spiders, especially wolf spiders. more so when I was little than now.
Most wolf spiders that I have seen have generally, at the largest, been about the size of my thumb nail, maybe a little larger with their legs extended! I let the little ones have the run of the house, but the bigger ones I catch and let go outside! Well, this morning my middle child comes to me and says "Dad! There is a giant spider in the bathroom!! Come and see." I figure he is exaggerating, but went to see anyways. What greets me in the bathroom is a wolf spider with legs that could span the top of my morning coffee cup from rim to rim! From stem to stern, not including legs, this spider was easily an inch and a half long! He looked like a small tarantula! I caught him and set him free outside. If he survives, I would like to see his size in another year or two!
Her is a picture of a male wolf spider:

I hate them. My wife is afrad of them so I get the task of killing all of them she finds.

Around here we usually find either some type of dime sized hairy thing that knows how to jump, or brown recluses which seemed to be all over in our old house. Considering the one would pop out of places and scare you and the other could actually do you permanent harm I just came to hate the eight legged little buggers.

Yeah, I ain't keen on them either. I once threw a shoe at a big fat juicy spider when I was living in Hong Kong and the damn thing exploded. Well, what I didn't realise was that it was carrying eggs/young on its abdomen and when the shoe hit thousands of tiny tiny spiders were released. Made my skin crawl. Still does. Brrrr.

I'm waiting for James to chime in here. In Australia the Wolf spiders are huge. With legs outstretched they probably span your face. Ugh.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

brown recluses

We have brown recluses in Minnesota too. A guy that works for us was using an outhouse at a northern Minnesota campground about ten years ago and was bitten by one on one of his buttocks. They had to remove a sizeable chunk of one of his butt cheeks and he tells us (I'll take his word for it) that he's had a permanent pronounced divot missing as a result.

Isn't the deadliest spider which I understand can also be aggressive found in Australia? Can kill a human in less than 1/2 hour? I forgot the name but I also recall that its fangs can puncture shoe leather.

Chris L

I hate spiders as well. I've had a few large wolfs and other large prowling spiders crawling across my skin repeatedly when I've been sleeping (several times the repeated scurrying woke me up). They were located and smashed to bits. I like what spiders do and the purpose they serve, but it's me against them when I'm sleeping.

I have a thing about insects. I hate them. They're icky. So spider's are my friends.

X

I found this very interesting piece about the wood spider:

YouTube - Spiders On Drugs