Spiders - big hairy fellas

Karl Hungus · 10-09-2004 10:47PM

Funnily enough I had a journal entry about my desk being under seige by spiders a while back, but right now they've completely backed off. Dunno where they're gone. Maybe all those mad ones you all seem to be seeing are my lads, buggered off and grown up a bit?

Tell 'em I said hi.

elivsvonchiaing · 10-09-2004 11:38PM

BrianD3 wrote:

Nah, don't squish 'em. Big spider = big mess when squished Leave them be, they are good to have in the house as they feed on beetles, earwigs etc. If you're unfortunate enough to have cockroaches in your house, the spiders will eat those too.

One more tip: don't sleep with your mouth open when you've got house spiders :eek: hahaha

BrianD3

I know a girl who threw out a pair of shoes after squishing a spider. Banana leaf spider. Thank fcuk we don't get them in this country - big as yer head (legs)- body about size of creme egg - yeurgh!

pork99 · 11-09-2004 12:17AM

Some lovely pictures here

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/Agelenidae/Agelenidae.htm

Theres 11 sub-species of Tegenaria (House Spider) in Europe, our remote caveman ancestors brought them with them from the caves.

Check out the one that was too big to go into jar. :eek:

Apparently we are lucky to have the Tegenaria Gigantea as the alternative species, common in parts of the US, is the Tegenaria Agrestis or Hobo Spider. It bites and this is what the bite looks like;

http://www.srv.net/~dkv/hobospider/poison.html

sci0x · 11-09-2004 12:24AM

Take a look at these guys. Imagine finding one of these in the bath...

pork99 · 11-09-2004 12:28AM

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

That's a coin not a saucer

How about this little beauty
Japanese Spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi); fully grown it can reach a leg span of almost 4 meters (13 feet), a body size of up to 37 cm (15 inches) and a weight of up to 20 kg (44 pounds).

http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/entomology/factsheets/wolfspid.html

Yes but thats a crab therefore a crustacean not a spider?

The Megarachne servinei was thought to be the biggest spider ever but "but is now thought more likely to represent another type of spider-like ancient arachnid". It would have had a leg span of 20"

http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders/diversity/what/largest.htm

Sugarbear · 11-09-2004 01:02AM

The spiders you are all seeing are totally normal house spiders.
They are just a few of the many different species of house spider all of which are harmless.
If we didn’t have house spiders we'd have tons of beetles, flies, centipedes and all the other ugly creatures running around so it's not all bad.
The only reason people are noticing them now is because of the odd weather we've had this summer, which brings an increase in all the other nasty bugs, and to spiders, this means feast time! So they naturally get bigger.
I estimate the one I seen in the kitchen the other night to have been about 2 inches, which is HUGE, but still normal.
Ohh and the spiders you see running across the living room at 2 am are actually hunting spiders and usually lay dormant in the morning.
There’s nothing you can really do to keep spiders from coming into the home, but having a pet dog or cat usually keeps the amount of them at bay.
Once the winter season comes in, there wont be many left, so you all have something to look forward to this miserable winter eh?

Pyr0 · 11-09-2004 01:11AM

OMG!!!! was just reading the thread when i looked down at a runner that was on the ground and the laces were tied a certain way,that they looked like one of those huge spiders! :eek:

sci0x · 11-09-2004 01:13AM

Paranoid!

davej · 11-09-2004 01:43AM

I was just forced to dispose of a daddy-long-legs because it kept crashing into the monitor.

Not really in the same league as the professional spider hunters in this thread i guess..

davej

munkeehaven · 11-09-2004 02:11AM

i used to have a spider for a pet when i was younger (as a compensationf for animals)..well one day it had this weird ball of what looked like cotton..i had it on my windowsill in box and i used to feed it daily with flies and other insects..one day the fluffball kind of fell apart and all these minute spiders came out of it..i was thrilled.anyway spiders are lovely little things.they are really cool to watch when they are feeding.its mad the way they can feel the slightest vibration going through the web, and how they wrap the critters up in their cocoon thingys.did you know that the same length of spider web is stronger than an equal length of steel wire??..they are some cool eight legged freaks i tells ya

.

Suaimhneach · 11-09-2004 02:43AM

The only time I freek out by a spider is if it's IN the bath or shower while I am. Otherwise they don't bother me. There is a HUGE one living under the fish tank in my mates house.

But your right Munkeehaven, tehy are interesting to watch. The ones that live on the ceiling in my bathroom entertain me while I shower.... They a web like an inch below the ceiling, rather than just walking on teh ceiling.

I don;t mind daddy long legs, I just pick them up and let them out the window.

I HATE centipedes though. And earwigs. UGh....only things that freek me out.

munkeehaven · 11-09-2004 02:56AM

it defintely is a learned response to be afraid of spiders,snakes,etc. young babies will have no problem being around a crawling snake or surrounded by wriggly ants, but as a child gets older it sees the reponses of others and begins to have the same irrational fear that they show (obviously snakes are a rational fear if they are poisonous).

JackKelly · 11-09-2004 04:15AM

i hate you all.im now going to have to take my bed away from the wall, check under ,around, inside, outside, beside, on top of, in the covers , outside the covers, on the covers and under the pillow.I dont want any of those biatches near me!

Tusky · 11-09-2004 09:29AM

TimAy wrote:

i hate you all.im now going to have to take my bed away from the wall, check under ,around, inside, outside, beside, on top of, in the covers , outside the covers, on the covers and under the pillow.I dont want any of those biatches near me!

On average three spiders crawl over your face every night - we also eat about a half dozen spiders in our sleep in a lifetime !

some info - House spiders colonize new houses by egg sacs carried on furniture, building materials and so forth. They usually spend their entire life cycle in, on or under their native building. If a large number appear at a specific season, it is usually late summer (August and September) -- not a notably cold time of year! -- rather than fall, and their appearance coincides with the mating season of the given species. What you are seeing is sexually mature males wandering in search of mates.

pork99 · 11-09-2004 09:55AM

Sugarbear wrote:

They are just a few of the many different species of house spider all of which are harmless.

Did you look at the photo of the spider bite I linked to above? You should say mostly harmless.

The Hobo Spider is a variety of Tegenaria or House Spider, in this country they're mostly found outdoors or in derelict buildings as the Tegenaria Gigantea (which doesn't have a poisonous bite) has displaced them indoors (as far as I can find out from the internet anyway).

In its native Europe the hobo spider is a resident of fields, rarely entering human habitations due to the presence of major competitors, particularly the giant house spider, Tegenaria gigantea, which is a common resident of houses and other man-made structures in Europe; thus, human contacts with the hobo spider are uncommon in Europe.

http://hobospider.org/story.html

I'm not an expert on spider identification, as far as I can find out all varieties of Tegenaria look very similiar, therefore I would never pick one up.

Non-hobo agelenid spiders are also important as "look-alike" species to the hobo. Some species are very difficult for the untrained eye to distinguish from the hobo spider, and many non-arachnologist "hobo spider" identifications ultimately turn out to be other Tegenaria species or other members of the family Agelenidae.

http://www.srv.net/~dkv/hobospider/european.html

Hello Kitty · 11-09-2004 10:43AM

Tusky wrote:

On average three spiders crawl over your face every night - we also eat about a half dozen spiders in our sleep in a lifetime ! [/i]

Okay thats disgusting.... im sure id wake up if something was crawling on my face, actually id get up and run!!

But are they still alive in your stomach??? :eek:

Sarky · 11-09-2004 10:48AM

For a little while.

pork99 · 11-09-2004 11:14AM

Tusky wrote:

On average three spiders crawl over your face every night - we also eat about a half dozen spiders in our sleep in a lifetime !

Disgusting! What's your source for that? I can only assume that applies to smaller spiders. One of the big hairy carpet monsters would choke you surely?

pork99 · 11-09-2004 11:16AM

Myth: You unknowingly swallow an average of four live spiders in your sleep each year.

Fact: This very widespread urban legend has no basis in fact. It exists in various forms; another common version is that you swallow an average of 20 in your lifetime. (At 4 per year, that would make a very short lifetime of 5 years...) For a sleeping person to swallow even one live spider would involve so many highly unlikely circumstances that for practical purposes we can rule out the possibility. No such case is on formal record anywhere in scientific or medical literature.

http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/whileyousleep.html

The myth of swallowing spiders in your sleep is simply that – a myth. Like most arthropods, spiders flee from warm air (i.e. your breath). Therefore, in order for a spider to get into your mouth, you would have to have it open, there would have to be a wandering spider near you and it would have to fall from a distance into your mouth. It is possible, by some anomaly of nature to swallow a spider; however, you can sleep easy knowing it is very unlikely.

http://www.gazette.uwo.ca/2002/November/7/Campus_and_Culture5.htm

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.htm

Sarky · 11-09-2004 11:16AM

You'd be surprised how well you swallow in your sleep.

AdMMM · 11-09-2004 11:51AM

I saw a massive black spider with yellow speckles while I was renting a house in the country a good 7 years a go. I just used a fly-swatter on it against the wall...

pork99 · 11-09-2004 02:50PM

I've one of these

http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/~stueber/essays/pholcus/pholcus_phalangioides.html

living on the ceiling of my shower. I've saved it from drowning a couple of times. It seems to have either died or molted now.

smuckers · 11-09-2004 08:48PM

I hate spiders but I have not seen anything like the type have been seen by people on the previous pages, only the baby ones are in my house.

Dr Bolouswki · 11-09-2004 09:12PM

horrificly large

kill them

kill them all

munkeehaven · 12-09-2004 01:57PM

awww...i would love a tarantula.....you can eat them too..euchh...saw it on telly, they caught the tarantulas and then made a light egg batter and fried them.....but it is funny though aint it? they (spiders) are like a few hundred times smaller then us but seem to frighten us more than bigger earthly creatures....seriously though just watch them and you will see how cool they are...maybe it's the legs that freak people out...or the eyes...???

Waltons · 12-09-2004 07:07PM

Awww man, pictures. I knew I shouldn't have come into this thread :eek:

elivsvonchiaing · 12-09-2004 11:14PM

Waltons wrote:

Awww man, pictures. I knew I shouldn't have come into this thread :eek:

How I wish I had only ever seen pictures... Hairy tarantulas seem a lot more endearing than the ones I've mentioned. (Though these (tarantulas) can shoot spikes - the banana leafers just scare the sh1t out of you!). E.g. you walk to the pub and spot some of them overhead on telephone wires that traverse the road overhead . You proceed to the pub, meet everyone, some people are annoying late - so you end up drinking more than you planned- end up getting locked and start to walk home. You suddenly sober up for some reason and then you remember to look up and realise it just here you last saw the big-ass spider. You sprint past the point - and when you get home you paranoicly look in the bathroom mirror to make sure one hasn't landed on your head.

A spider that is big as your head is scary to almost everyone imho.

Chucky the tree · 13-09-2004 01:52AM

munkeehaven wrote:

awww...i would love a tarantula.....you can eat them too..euchh...saw it on telly, they caught the tarantulas and then made a light egg batter and fried them.....but it is funny though aint it? they (spiders) are like a few hundred times smaller then us but seem to frighten us more than bigger earthly creatures....seriously though just watch them and you will see how cool they are...maybe it's the legs that freak people out...or the eyes...???

it is the legs. 8 of the little things, never know what direction they will go in :eek:

i cant stand spiders, i really hate them. ugh

x in the city · 13-09-2004 02:00AM

while we are on about our creepy friends, i saw one of these in the shed last week.

:eek:
looks like an orb weaver

its marrrrrsssive.. i have it in a jar, it has eaten about 30 wasps so far!

and a mouse...

Kêrmêttê · 13-09-2004 10:33AM

There is an uncommonly huge amount of spiders about at the moment.
I found this ugly beastie living in a tree at the bottom of my back garden... scared the living daylights out of me... and it's tormenting my poor doggie because she can see it but it's too high up for her to get at.
I'd love if she could get her teeth into it... I wouldn't have to feed her for a whole week... it's THAT big!!!

(pic was taken with my blurry camera phone) :rolleyes:

Spiders - big hairy fellas

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