ACK! Black Widow!!

[denice]

I was bitten by a brown recluse when I was in high school. Their bites are painful and they really swell. I remember I had to get a number of shots over a period of like a week or a week and a half. It was trapped in my clothes which is probably why I got bit. I shook my clothes out good before putting them on for a long time after that.

 

[mooficat]

We have them here - European Black widows, I had two in my garden last year

I was really worried about my cats with prying paws

Anyway the female can keep the male sperm for up to 3 yrs, some species can keep it for its whole lifetime, which luckliy for us may only be a year !
So she can have babies all the time

and of course she can have as many as 1,500

eeeekkkkk !!!!
I dont like killing any creatures, but when one had what seemed to be a million babies, I had to do something - sorry

 

[emrldsky]

*shudders* I read an article on the Brown Recluse (aka, Fiddle spider or Violin spider) years ago in Readers Digest, and I was freaked out for months afterwards.

I know that black widows are generally more deadly to young children and the elderly. Most adults can be bitten by one and be ok.

Btw, Hilda, we don't eat 8 spiders a year: http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.htm

 

[kai bengals]

We get black widows around our property all the time. I just capture them and relocate them at the wood line. They're very docile and easy to capture. I just coax them into a jar and off they go.

We also get plenty of big wolf spiders. Now these guys act aggressive and I have seen them lunge at the cats instead of running away.
They're very fast and hard to catch and they will bite if given the opportunity.
They seem to love getting into the cattery too. The cats always kill them, but I know a couple of them have gotten bit in the process.

 

[hilda>^..^<]

Originally Posted by emrldsky;1682559
Btw, Hilda, we don't eat 8 spiders a year: [url

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.htm[/url]

LOL! Thanks! I know I didn't read it online anywhere because we've only had a computer for...well, alot less time than I'd like to admit

But since the info was published in 1954 (I think that's what snopes says) I probably read it somewhere else...thanks though!

Hilda>^..^<

 

[strange_wings]

Originally Posted by Kai Bengals

We also get plenty of big wolf spiders. Now these guys act aggressive and I have seen them lunge at the cats instead of running away.
They're very fast and hard to catch and they will bite if given the opportunity.

I love to antagonize wolf spiders

but I let them go after, they do after all eat many other spiders.

Last summer I had a huge wolf spider that lived on a bushy plant in the turtle pen, I called her Big Momma spider

One day she came up missing... I think she turned into 'Big tasty turtle snack'.

 

[jenje!]

My house would have been under the big white tent a total of three minutes later. I HATE SPIDERS!

 

[rosey]

Hard to bomb when you have birds and fish i'm afraid but pest control is coming next week and I'm going to ask them to spray around my apartment outside.

 

[momof3rugratz]

I would hide and tell Hubby to call the exterminator... o take the cats with you

 

[pipersjo]

Since I have live in WV for 12 years now, I have learned many things about spiders. #1 being there are Black Widows in WV--including in the area that I used to live in (very cold and snowy in the winter). #2 being that Brown Recluse bites hurt--a lot! I have been bitten by 2 of them now and the first time, I thought my leg would fall off. So gross looking! I'm sure that I have learned many more things than that, but my skin is crawling now and I keep looking for little spiders crawling on me. Eeww!