# What do you do about the spiders?



## a Vertigo Guy (Aug 17, 2006)

Sure theyre good at catching renegade fruities but their webs just get all over everything! It seems for every 1 the vacuum eats 5 more pop out!

Suggestions?

C


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Learn to love them...or so it seems.

Bill


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## NWMusician (Apr 30, 2007)

Or get out your shoes!  I hate them and my cats love to eat them. That's one of the ways I have solved the problem!


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## Guest (Jul 18, 2007)

I like to see the occasional jumping spider in my tank. Sure they leave webs behind, but that only makes it look more natural. 
Besides those jumping spiders are too cool. look like they got some sort of inteligence.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Suck them up with the vac... I try to get the webs and etc every so often.


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Yeah I have the old shop vac handy for whenever Gina starts commenting how bad things look or I get tired of the 'Halloween' effect in the frog room.

I like spiders though so it's always with some regret that I clean them out. I especially like the jumping spiders...they tend to have personality for lack of a better way of putting it. I've had ones that seemed to be interested in human contact (who knows why) because they would seek me out when I came into the room they were in and weren't afraid to jump onto me.

Bill


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

I love jumping spiders. I have one now that likes to chase around the mouse pointer on my computer, running all over the screen as I type. I never molest these entertaining guys, nor any other spider to date, indoors or out. I rarely kill a spider, but recently some of the webs around my tanks have been occupied by a smallish type of black widow. They have the same features, including the hour glass red belly, but are very small, and remain so. Unlike the huge, cellar type black widows I'm used to, they are not retiring and shy, but aggressively attack and bite. I've been bitten twice by them, just getting into a tank and disturbing their overnight webs woven on the outside. Although they are much too small to have enough venom to do the usual gut wrenching damage that requires hospital treatment and an injection of IV calcium that one the old-fashioned big ones can do, their bites still hurt like hell, and take a long time to heal, and they are far more inclined to run out and bite, rather than mind their own business like their great big scary cousins. Their survival strategy has failed, because they have pissed me off, and I've instituted the death penalty for them. I got out the shop vac from hell to suck up every nook and cranny around my frog tanks. I just hope there is no collateral damage to the innocent citizens of spiderdome.


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## NWMusician (Apr 30, 2007)

One of the reasons that the jumping spiders seem to have a bit of a personality is because they, along with wolf spiders, are one of the few spiders with eyes big enough to see humans. Most other spiders can't. So they are naturally curious about you and as long as you are not aggressive towards them they may actually come and explore you. This does not bode well for people such as I, who are arachnophobic. YUCK!


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Too many spiders just means the food chain is too short. Time to add a link - house geckos.


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## a Vertigo Guy (Aug 17, 2006)

bbrock said:


> Too many spiders just means the food chain is too short. Time to add a link - house geckos.


But I dont want gecko crap all over the place :lol:


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

bbrock said:


> Too many spiders just means the food chain is too short. Time to add a link - house geckos.


I don't think house geckos would fare much better than mice do in a house with 4 cats and 5 dogs, but it's a cool concept if one doesn't have this domestic pet break in the food chain link that I do. Are you actually able to keep house geckos in Montana? I tend to think of them more as tropical house invaders, albeit a welcome invasion, even if they do occasionally fall from the ceiling into your soup.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

slaytonp said:


> bbrock said:
> 
> 
> > Too many spiders just means the food chain is too short. Time to add a link - house geckos.
> ...


We been waiting until the population of spiders builds up enough to support them. We're probably there now. But I have talked to other people in cold climates that said they did well and even laid eggs in houseplants.

As for the poop. It's a consolidation thing. You take a few dozen spiders and package them up in one pile of crap. But yeah, with cats the consolidation might go too far.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

slaytonp said:


> Their survival strategy has failed, because they have pissed me off, and I've instituted the death penalty for them. I got out the shop vac from hell to suck up every nook and cranny around my frog tanks. I just hope there is no collateral damage to the innocent citizens of spiderdome.



:lol: :lol: :lol:  

As for house geckos up north, I had one spend several winter months living in a plaster crack. I grew up in an old plaster house North of NYC. Since my father is a carpenter, things like cracked plaster in our own house took forever to fix. Anyway, this was years ago when I was around 11. I was unable to catch the gecko, because he never strayed far form his crack. He would run into it as soon as I walked into the room. I eventually got him on a cold winter’s morning when he was too slow to get back to his crack.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I do a weekly spider cleaning. I get mostly those long legged spindly dudes, with the occassional garden spider type and some jumpers/wolves. I've killed a couple wolves when they scared the daylights out of me, but generally I move jumpers and wolves back outside. I did have one jumper on the frog tanks for a while, but haven't seen him lately. I do have a larger jumper that is my buddy that lives on my small porch... he hangs with me when I'm out back enjoying the weather or on the phone.

The spindly dudes and the garden spiders (that are a little too much like widow shaped) get wiped out during my weekly spider cleaning... living on a farm means there are tons of the buggers. Also means that loose FFs aren't the only things they are eating, so I've gotta clean out the little beetles, ground beetles, and ladybirds that make their way in as well :roll: 

I'll leave the small geckos in their tanks, don't need to explain the loose geckos to my landlord, or deal with gecko poo everywhere.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

I believe those black widow shaped “garden spiders” actually out compete the widows. We live in Southern Black Widow territory, but I’ve never seen one. We have lots of those mottled brown widow look alikes though.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

All I know is when the wolf spiders are big enough I can hear them walking they have to go. I also have some smaller spiders that try to get into my tanks that I try to keep under control.


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## bstorm83 (Jul 16, 2007)

I am deathly scared of spiders so I make sure my place has none!....I don't know how they can get in your tanks so easily!!


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

*Extreme arachnophilia*

Here's a spider story I can't resist telling. I was foster-mom to two "troubled, thrown-away" teenage boys that I ended up adopting. They were wannabe rock stars, so I allowed them to set up a room for their own rock band, complete with drums and the amps from hell, then bought myself a set of jet engine proof ear muffs. This at least gave me a few hours when I actually knew where these kids were and what they were doing. Fortunately, I live in the boonies, so neighbors weren't a concern. 

One of the garden orb weaver spiders--a beautiful huge golden fat lady with two spikes on her back chose to build her 2 foot orb *inside* the window of their room. When they were playing, the web would vibrate and she'd rush out to the center of the web and really send it "rocking." 
She became an integral part of their band, with the stage name of Priscilla.

One evening when they had their girl friends over," I heard girly shrieks and "kill it! kill it!" through my muffs. A short time later, one of the girls marched down the stairs and out the front door spurting tears. I asked her what the trouble was, and she said, "I told Ben that he had to choose between me and that hideous spider, and he said, 'see ya around.'"

Moral: You don't always want test your relative importance to a boyfriend by issuing an ultimatum.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

bstorm,
Most of the time the spiders are not in but around the tanks. I get a lot of basement spiders (Pholcus phalangioides) in my frog room. For the most part I let them be. If the webs get too full of bodies, I take them down but I leave the spiders alone. I’m usually pretty good about keeping the fruit flies under control but the fungus gnats are another story. The spiders do a better job with them than I do.


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## Guest (Jul 23, 2007)

Great story Patty, shows those boys had some character.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Also shows that issuing ridiculous ultimatums tells people more about you than you want people to know. 

Way to go Ben!


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## NWMusician (Apr 30, 2007)

Even though I abhore the little creepy crawlies - I love that story! I might have chosen the same thing if given an ultimatum. I know I have dumped many over the frogs and newts. People just don't understand our interests all the time!


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## daemonfly (Dec 6, 2006)

I get the basement spiders more often than anything else (they probably ate everything else ).

We also have the house centipedes as well, and these keep any spider populations down quite well, although it's sometimes unnerving turning a light on and seeing a big one quickly skittering across the wall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_centipede


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

*Wolf spider motherhood*

Has anyone watched a mother wolf spider with a load of babies on her back?

These marvelous moms carry their egg sack with them wherever they go, then when the eggs hatch, the babies crawl upon their backs and ride around like a pile of duff, nearly obliterating her. 

I was watching a wolf spider mom with her hundred or so children going about her spider business, when another mother with children arrived, and they met face to face. A fierce battle ensued. The babies all piled off and got out of the way as the two moms reared up and began a wrestling match. The fight went on for several minutes, leaving one of the mothers stunned and motionless. Both sets of babies then piled on the back on the "winner," and she staggered off with a double load. From what I observed that day, the loser was conquered, but not actually eaten, so I'm not sure what advantage this was to the winner. 

Patty


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## zaj005 (May 5, 2007)

I have seen that happen alot. I learned not smash them when they have their babies, or you get babies everywhere you have to catch them with a jar or something and then go put them somewhere else. Im not trying to sound rude or anything but when you get them in you house its not fun.


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## zaj005 (May 5, 2007)

Ive been out hunting at night and seen wolf spyders in the road because there eyes were reflecting back at me i though it was a toad or something


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I just let these little brown and white spiders live close by my tanks. There are tons of them. Yes, they make messy webs and get into any nook and cranny (like suction cupped film canisters that i neglected in front of my tanks) but they have done a great job keeping the stray flies at bay.

They're kinda cute too, especially if you scare them and they fall and play dead in a tiny little ball.


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## bstorm83 (Jul 16, 2007)

yeah i hate all spiders and i will kill any around my tank which will be in my room. I am going to black jungle on wednesday to get all my stuff(wicked excited about it). 

Good to know about the house centipedes...i killed one thinking it was a silverfish. But if i ever see one again they will be left alone in my pursuit to kill all spiders in my apartment and surrounding area.

I have not had a problem with my frog interest and women yet.....they seem quite interested in my soon to be frog hobby, however they are under the impression they can name them! hahahaha


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## porkchop48 (May 16, 2006)

Patty you never cease to amazing my and what a kind and caring peron you seem to be.
But moving on to the spider thing. I had a teleconference in my office the other day ( little office , 3 women) and when we shut the door on the back of my door was a huge ( well to me huge ) about 1 1/2 inches long brown gnarly looking spidey SO you have 3 women trying to be quiet ause of the people on the other end of the phone and yell at me at the same time to kill it. Quite funny you had to be there.

As for my frog room ( i hate to say it ) but any spider I see gets squished. They gross me out and I think they are creepy. They rank right up there with birds and crickets on my creep list/


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## Guest (Jul 26, 2007)

did I read that right? Did you say birds?? :shock:


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

I have a friend who is terrified of birds. At the same time, she doesn't flinch at spiders, scorpions or snakes, and I've seen her pull a calf, then calmly hop out of the way of the ticked off mother cow, which is a truly dangerous situation. She learned to fly and has a pilot's license, yet when I had an aviary of tropical birds in the house, she wouldn't go into the same room with it, and when we hike, I have to go first in case we scare up a grouse or quail. Of course, she KNOWS this is totally irrational, but that doesn't help her a bit. Phobias have no relationship to reason, (except mine, of course.)

Patty


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## Guest (Jul 26, 2007)

Yes Patty, Im sure your and my phobias both go hand in hand with reason. :wink:


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## bstorm83 (Jul 16, 2007)

that is odd...flys but has fear of birds.


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## porkchop48 (May 16, 2006)

Oh yeah birds you know them creepy things with beady eyes and feathers. Nothing will make me dive for cover quicker than a bird swooping over head. I got goose bumps just writing about it.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Wimps!










:wink: :lol:


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## bstorm83 (Jul 16, 2007)

yeah how are birds scary? I mean not single out your phobia but birds if anything run away from you or poop on your car windshield....thats about it.

spiders are gross with 8 eyes and 8 legs....thats just not normal and they shoot at sticky stuff and bite you! Thats scary!


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## froglady (Feb 21, 2004)

bstorm83 said:


> spiders are gross with 8 eyes and 8 legs....thats just not normal and they shoot at sticky stuff and bite you! Thats scary!


You forgot to add that the 8 legs all move independently of one another..... :shock: - very scary..... (off course that could be because I'm completely arachnophobic.....)


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## bstorm83 (Jul 16, 2007)

I am tooo.....i am 24 and such a girl when it comes to spiders!


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

O.K., all you arachnophobes--Here's some mandatory reading: Jean-Henri Fabre's Life of the Spider. He was a French naturalist (1823-1915) and if you aren't totally charmed by this treatise, you are uncharmable. It's available from Amazon.com, and can also be downloaded chapter by chapter from the Gutenberg site. But pop for the book--it's only about $9.00 or less, used. 

Out of date? Of course the scientific names and such probably are, but observaton stories such as Fabre's never get old, especially since he takes a rather anthropomorphic view of the fascinating world of the creepy crawlies which is easier to relate to than strictly factual text. 

I lost my copy years ago, so have just ordered a new one. I can recall however, one story of bondage-- a female spider that is so vicious, the male captures her as a spiderling and confines her to a web cage he weaves around her. When she is ready to breed, he rips open the cage, on the rear side, deposits his sperm, then runs like hell. If that doesn't titilate your curiosity, you are beyond help. :shock: 

Patty


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## bstorm83 (Jul 16, 2007)

lol patty you further my fear of spiders...now they are deviants!!!


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## froglady (Feb 21, 2004)

I agree spiders are fascinating creatures. However, I still can't get over that whole 8 leg moving independently thing. I've talked to bug guys at shows and they are always very respectful of my fears. I've heard some really cool stories about spiders and their behavior - the bug guys way of trying to talk me out of my fear. But I still can't manage to look at a picture of one without getting creeped out.

Melissa had a brilliant idea once to help me get over my fear of spiders. She bought a tarantula. It lasted about a month in the house before I made her give it away. I was fine with it in it's cage but when she took it out I was in total fear of it.

We once caught a spider in the house and put it in a cage to observe it. Fed it fruit flies. It made it's web in the corner and when we fed it the spider would run and catch the fruit flies and then take them back to it's web. It was fascinating to watch... unless the lid was open... then it was creepy.


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## a Vertigo Guy (Aug 17, 2006)

NOTHING is creepier than a standard cockroach. Just the way those two antennae move around! neener! neener! neener!

And then the flying ones! Shit I drop to the ground wailing like a girl!


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

bstorm83 said:


> lol patty you further my fear of spiders...now they are deviants!!!


I have to admit, most spiders aren't "spouse" friendly, and the ladies rarely feel more romantic than hungry, so their suitors have to go to great lengths of elaborate foreplay and often somewhat kinky precautions for what amounts to a one time shot at sex. I also have to admit that this morning, when my "pet" jumping spider, who guards my computer, chases the mouse pointer, and sometimes captures and sucks the guts out of full sized house flies, to my amusement, jumped on the back of my hand, I instinctively reacted to flip her clear across the room before I was able to rationalize that she was harmless, and all of the other crap I preach. I do prefer to observe things with eight legs as long as they aren't crawling upon my own flesh. It took her all day to find her way back, but she's around again this evening, along with a tiny baby the size of a fruit fly. (Where did this single, tiny baby come from?) How do I apologize to her for misjudging her intentions? 

Patty


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## Marty71 (Nov 9, 2006)

"and the ladies rarely feel more romantic than hungry, so their suitors have to go to great lengths of elaborate foreplay and often somewhat kinky precautions for what amounts to a one time shot at sex"


Sadly, you just described my weekend.


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

Marty71 said:


> "and the ladies rarely feel more romantic than hungry, so their suitors have to go to great lengths of elaborate foreplay and often somewhat kinky precautions for what amounts to a one time shot at sex"
> 
> 
> Sadly, you just described my weekend.


Could I apply for a job as your "straight man" in a comedy routine? Neither Henny Youngman nor Roger Dangerfield could have done better with that straight line, except they're both dead now. 

Patty

Humor is alive and well on Dendroboard!


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## Anoleo2 (Feb 1, 2006)

I prefer the jumpers. They are the coolest spiders. I have to admit I kept one in a jar and dumped a bunch of flies in, just to see it hunt... 8) 

Speaking of arachnophobia, one of my friends has it and he was over our cottage the other night... Well we were eating dinner and he noticed I was looking at the ceiling, so he asked what I was looking at. Now, I wasn't going to tell him, but he asked, sooo I just pointed out the centimeter long spider crawling on the light fixture above his head.

He didn't take his eyes off the ceiling the whole time we were at the table. 

I'm mean, I know :mrgreen:


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Boo!


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## bstorm83 (Jul 16, 2007)

Grassypeak said:


> Boo!



GROSS! EVIL VILE CREATURES!


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## zBrinks (Jul 16, 2006)

I love my spiders. I actually was able to transplant one, web and all, across a vent that wasnt quite FF proof. The spider probably figured he hit gold, and I benefitted with a reduction in the number of FFs that found their way into my drinking glass.


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

She is gorgeous, Chris. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder for sure.

Patty


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I prefer carnivorous plants for FF control at this point :roll: Funny thing is, some new additions are acting as spider control too  First bug on my butterwort? basement spider


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## porkchop48 (May 16, 2006)

what kind of Carnivorous plants work best. I have a FF problem right now and would like to take that approach. Do they need to be in an uncovered or just on a shelf?


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I have fungus knat problems more, so I got some mini sundews and a butterwort... tho they've got some dinners off a wide variety of bugs that I've gotten (small beetles, knats, small flies, the butter wort has claimed a spider and a small housefly... might have to get a pitcher plant for the larger stuff!). I think it's just as important to consider where you want to put the plant as it is what you're trying to get the plant to eat... i did the mini sundews due to small bug size and because they were going in a south facing window that gets full sun and do not require a terrarium. Other than the new butterwort, I've only grown sundews (have kept around a few species for FF/fungus knat control for a few years) so I can't really comment on any of the others.


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## Enlightened Rogue (Mar 21, 2006)

Kill `em every chance I get. sorry, can`t stand them :x 

John


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

Enlighted Rogue said:


> Kill `em every chance I get. sorry, can`t stand them :x
> 
> John


Your name, "Enlightened Rogue," does not define you, then. You have not seen the "light" until you have seen the light reflecting from myriads of fine dew droplets upon a spider web across your path through the woods, and either worship its pristine beauty before thinking, "I gotta get outta here before the creepy thing that did this jumps on me and sucks me dry," or scream and run the other direction without thinking anything at all. As an enlightened spider person, with the exception of certain house species I abhor and vacuum up, I see this sort of beauty, take it in with breathless admiration for all the great architecture and other fun stuff spiders do, then skirt around such a web, about ten feet, or a goodly pole's length, because I really don't want to be mistaken for spider food, even if I know better and know that there is less than 1 in a billion chance of one of these bastards jumping down to even say "hello" to me. 8)


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## themann42 (Apr 12, 2005)

i get some that are black and have huge belly's. when you squish them they make a popping sound that really grosses me out. i try to clean up all the webs and nests whenever i see them, i hate the way webs looks and feel.

however i also have two jumping spiders that i let roam around. they're actually kinda neat to watch and don't leave webs all over so i leave them alone.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

I often find it amazing that people don't bat an eye at getting in cars, which really do kill a lot of people, and careening down the highway at 70 mph. Yet, put them within arms length of a harmless spider and....

Equally interesting is the propensity for people to pollute their own environments with toxic substances in order to kill harmless arthropods (put my parents in that camp).


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## Tim F (Jan 27, 2006)

Marty71 said:


> "and the ladies rarely feel more romantic than hungry, so their suitors have to go to great lengths of elaborate foreplay and often somewhat kinky precautions for what amounts to a one time shot at sex"
> 
> 
> Sadly, you just described my weekend.


That's hysterical!! Sad, but hysterical!


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## Enlightened Rogue (Mar 21, 2006)

Very well put Patty, but you know what? I still kill em when I see em  (in my house that is :wink: )

John


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Wouldn’t you know it, after my poking fun at the arachnophobes, I walked into my frog room this afternoon only to get a nice sticky web in the face! Now, I don’t really mind this kind of thing, but I’m a clean freak, and this was a frog room spider so I had to wash my face a few extra times when I took my shower. :roll:


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

bbrock said:


> I often find it amazing that people don't bat an eye at getting in cars, which really do kill a lot of people, and careening down the highway at 70 mph. Yet, put them within arms length of a harmless spider and....
> 
> Equally interesting is the propensity for people to pollute their own environments with toxic substances in order to kill harmless arthropods (put my parents in that camp).


And the eventual winners, impervious survivors of all of this will be----the spiders, insects, especially houseflies and don't forget to mention the survior kings of all --cockroaches. :twisted:


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

[email protected] Brent!


You guys call this little critter creepy?


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Cool Dendrobait! What is it, and how old is it?

I was once in a mom and pop pet shop where a guy was thinking about purchasing a pink toed tarantula. His girlfriend and a few of her friends were with him and the owner of the shop was handling the spider. They were all standing around the owner in the back room of the shop, when all of a sudden the spider decided to make a brake for it. You never see how fast they can move when you see them on T.V. This sucker took off like a bat out of you know where. It ran right up the owner’s arm and jumped when it got to the top. It landed in a garbage can, which was probably lucky for the spider. The back room of the petshop was empty of everyone besides me and the shop owner before the spider landed. It was the funniest thing. I don’t think that guy ever got his spider.

Also, at the same shop a friend and I were checking out a baboon spider on a high shelf. I reached up to show my friend that the spider would flex his fangs when he saw a hand in front of the glass. I inadvertently knocked a big hairy rubber spider off the shelf. Neither of us had seen the rubber spider before it fell. Needless to say we both jumped! Ha…ha….:shock:


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

That is a little Mexican Redrump tarantula. I have 1 of those(used to have more but 1 escaped), 1 curlyhair, and one local WC tarantula sitting on an eggsac(probably Aphonopelma iodus). I also recently acquired one tailess whipscorpion(Damon diadema).

This all being said, just because I am not scared of them does not necessarily mean I treat free range spiders any better. I leave little ones alone, but the big ones are possible death traps for any escapee animals. 

Great stories BTW!

Also, I always thought it was kind of funny how people are scared of bees/wasps too(I can understand if you are allergic). I've never been stung, and no I do not treat them with respect. When a wasp/bee is flying around or crawling up a window and most people are staying still or running away my motto is "If you kill it, it can't sting you." If you flick them real hard or bat them with your hand that is usually enough to get rid of them, and if you don't get them they'll usually leave anyway. That being said I haven't had the classic ticking off a hornet nest thing yet.

One time a friend and I fooling around in a stream and decided to get back on the trail. So we had to climb up a steep overgrown road cut(redwood forest). I climbed over a ground bee nest of some kind. My friend was right behind me, so the critter buzzed out angrily and stung him on the thumb!


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## Marty71 (Nov 9, 2006)

I have always been terrified of spiders but I have come to respect the ones in my frog room. My rules are simple, if your body is the size of a marble and you have hair on your legs you are too big and must go. I don't kill them, just relocate them as if I were a bomb squad technician since they scare the living hell out of me. 



> Also, I always thought it was kind of funny how people are scared of bees/wasps


When I was 4 years old I decided to throw a whiz outside. Found a neat little hole in the ground and aimed away. Three stings later in a certain area I decided that bees and i would never get along. Get stung a few times and you'll be scared too...


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Marty71 said:


> I have always been terrified of spiders but I have come to respect the ones in my frog room. My rules are simple, if your body is the size of a marble and you have hair on your legs you are too big and must go. I don't kill them, just relocate them as if I were a bomb squad technician since they scare the living hell out of me.


It's like anything else, familiarity reduces fear and increases respect. I have never been afraid of snakes and have been seeking out, catching, and observing them since I was about 4 years old. But I confess that spiders gave me the heebies. Realizing this was irrational, I habituated myself. First observing them very closely. Then allowing them to crawl across a hand, up an arm, etc. It doesn't take long to figure out they are just trying to get around. That they don't want to mess with you anymore than you want to mess with them. For the most part, we are nothing more than a rock or tree stump to them. Just something between where they are and where they want to be. Now, even a brown recluse crawling across an arm or leg does not bother me. We lived in a house loaded with them - the real ones - not the ones many people imagine. We just got use to the idea that if you felt something crawling across you in bed, just leave it alone and it would go away. One night my wife felt a spider crawling on her face. I was in the bathroom and she walked in with this quarter-sized brown recluse on her cheek. I looked at her and said, "yep, that's a brown recluse and it's a big one!", with a grin on my face. She just rolled her eyes and said, "get it off" very matter of fact.



> When I was 4 years old I decided to throw a whiz outside. Found a neat little hole in the ground and aimed away. Three stings later in a certain area I decided that bees and i would never get along. Get stung a few times and you'll be scared too...


Sounds like a case of getting pissed on and pissed off. Can't really blame them. Again, it is a matter of familiarity leading to respect. If a wasp is just buzzing around a porch or window and you start flailing into hysterics, you are just exposing yourself to trouble. But, of course, many wasps and bees are highly defensive of their nests. If you notice a honeycomb paper wasp nest with several wasps hanging on watching your every move, it is best to back away slowly but quickly. If you hear a droning buzz coming from the ground, run away. You can always zip it up later.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I have the same thoughts as Brent... I'm afraid of heights, so I took up repelling. I had a scary experience in water as a kid, was terrified of water I couldn't walk in... so I learned to swim. Took it a step farther and took up surfing. Nothing like the feeling of being put in a washing machine to help you with that fear. I just can't get into the white water rafting tho...

My best "fear" story is how I got rid of my fear of spiders... I was in high school when I was lucky enough to become a volunteer at NAIB in the rainforest... I didn't work with the frogs early on, but rather the lizards and misc. bugs (locusts, millipedes, roaches, walking sticks), and worked on keeping the hidden life displays in good condition. Of course, one of the animals on display happens to be a large female orb weaving spider... what most people don't know is that these spiders are bred in the back to keep the steady supply of females for display. My first day... very excited... and I'm handed a cotton tuft on a stick, and told to put it on the other stick in the Orb Weaver cage so it could hatch... it was an egg case ready to hatch! Eeeek! Of course, I wasn't going to admit my fear and say no... so I stuck the egg case on that branch right where I was told to put it... which happened to be at the back of the 2ish foot screen cube full of spiders and their webs. It took me a half hour, but I did it! My mentor didn't find out I had been arachnophobic until two years later... by then I was playing with tarantulas and orbs no problem LOL. I terrorized some arachnophobic backpackers on my Costa Rica trip by playing with a number of orb weavers, a tarantula, and was in charge of removing the scorpions from the house we staid in while surfing.

I've kept a number of orb weavers since, and even one nasty tempered tarantula for a while while she was looking for a new home. I just kill the basement spiders in decent amount to keep the population down... once the carnivorous plants really get going there will be less food so I'll see less of them.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Marty71 said:


> Get stung a few times and you'll be scared too...


Not so sure of that one. I've been bitten by a few things, and when I was in 4th grade had a close call with a little rattlesnake. That hasn't changed the way that I view the animals. I will say that being scared and being cautious are two different things!

Big dogs give me the heebie jeebies though. Sure i will pet it if it is nice, but I don't want a hug! :lol:


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

Somewhere at the beginning of this thread, I mentioned an old book I'd read as a kid, The Life of a Spider by Jean Henri Fabre, (1823-1915) translated from the French. Since then, I've obtained a new copy, as it appears to be back in print again, and just finished re-reading it. It hasn't lost a bit of its charm, although a few descriptions I recall weren't in it, so I must have read them elsewhere, or there's a more extensive edition I haven't found. Fabre was a contemporary of Darwin, who referred to him as the "Homer of Insects," and he was called the "Poet of Insects," by his biographers. He is still revered in Japan for his perspective on nature as directly linked to science and art. Through his very simple experiments, he postulated a number of truths before his time, one of them being the existence of pheromones in moths. His tendency to anthropomorphize doesn't affect his experimental results and conclusions, it simply gives his writing more sparkle and fun, and imbues his subjects with survival "motives" we can relate to. He did his field work with his children in tow. 

I PROMISE you will not be disappointed if you pick up a copy from one of the book sites like Amazon. Read it to your kids when you're totally sick of "Curious George." Over 100 years after its publication, this book remains as delightful as ever--and I promise even if it fails to cure arachnophobia, it is impossible not to be totally fascinated and entertained.


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## thekidgecko (Oct 30, 2006)

I second the Lolz at Brent! That a great analogy. I have to disagree with the brown recluse thing however, they have caused me and my family hell. They tend to try to share your bed in the winter here. They don't take kindly to being semi-crushed :shock:

Gosh I wish I didn't have to kill spiders. We have to spray the house all the time, but recently we have had an invasion of Mediterranean Geckos so haven't had to in a while. Woot. My frogs food has been attracting them as well it seems. I love 'em however creepy looking they can be (minus the occasional POed Texas 'rantula. Those suckers can have random personalities), but I have a drug resistant strain of infection that flares to incredibly painful proportions with any insect or arachnid bite/sting. I've got a dent and scar in my right leg from a house spider bite and I'm recovering from just a mosquito bite... LAME!  Ironically I got it from a probable brown recluse bite.... Spiders are so awesome too. Used to have a tad of a phobia though. 

Hasn't stop me from hunting for coppers though!


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## Guest (Aug 7, 2007)

Speaking of spiders
ANyone know what this is? Found it in MacArthur State Park in Florida. Not far from the beach, maybe 20 feet away, max.
I saw a few actually hanging out in their classic spiderwebs. 
Sorry for the poor quality, as I don't really have the expertise to take better pics of tiny spiders dangling in mid air.


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## candm519 (Oct 15, 2006)

What a gorgeous creature--I googled around, and found:

Trail Crab Spider 

'Gasteracantha cancriformis'

Google the scientific name and go to images. Wow!


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## Guest (Aug 7, 2007)

Wow, thanks for the quick reply!


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

thekidgecko said:


> I second the Lolz at Brent! That a great analogy. I have to disagree with the brown recluse thing however, they have caused me and my family hell. They tend to try to share your bed in the winter here. They don't take kindly to being semi-crushed :shock:


That's why we learned not to react when something was crawling across you in bed. We decided it was best to just wish them happy travels across our bodies than to risk the semi-crush and a chunk of flesh rotting out later. Twenty years of sharing our beds with the little buggers later, and we still had all our body parts.

One more story. My dad visited my brother in Texas years ago and one day complained all day of a sore toe. He finally removed his shoe to discover a tarantula that had been trapped when he put his shoe on and had spent the day chewing on my dad's big toe. Poor little spider.


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## booboo (Jan 22, 2005)

I didnt read all 5 pages but let me put this out there. Jumping spiders are cool; but after blaming other members in my household for possibly stealing a reltivley large imitator tadpole (why they would take it I have no idea but it was worth a try) I found out that a jumping spider ate it!!! It was about two days later when I found the missing tad that I went to feed the tadpoles and there perched on the lip of the cup was a nice big jumping spider waiting for the tadpole to get a little closer to the surface... thought i would let you guys/girls know


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## thekidgecko (Oct 30, 2006)

Yeah.... I kinda fail in my sleep.... I wish I could control it X|


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Not the best shot but "aint she a beauty!"


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## a Vertigo Guy (Aug 17, 2006)

holy cow :shock: 

Big'un she is!


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## Guest (Sep 11, 2007)

I bet she wanted to suck that finger dry. Nice!!!


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