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Sep 15, 2014 10:27 AM
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http://www.srv.net/~dkv/hobospider/femho…
They've been gradually invading the PNW.
I get bites every year. The first time it was horrible, felt like the worst flu I ever had and lasted 6 weeks.
I still get bit every year, but the result is more short-lived now.
(By the way, they now have iPhone apps that do what plant Peterson's Guides used to...let you look up flora by image and identify. Maybe they have one for fauna as well ?)
Er, I mean, Fake!
Seriously, though, are these poisonous? I think that's the main worry I would have. If not, then I would want to have it stick around eating bugs.
If they're not poisonous, and you want to get rid of it, a cat is possible solution.
@6 I don't believe they're particularly dangerous, but I'm too terrified to Google it...
EVERYONE SHUT UUUUUUPPPPP!
:(
They can't walk through them, since they can't open the doors.
That said, it's the Lyme disease from ticks you have to worry about, not the (mostly non-poisonous) spiders.
I'm not a terribly squeamish person, but that spider picture, plus the "too big to squish" and the audible scraping noise have me wanting to literally crawl out of my skin. I want to claw at my eyes and just go run around as a naked skeleton. I've never been so squicked in my life, and I used to handle severed human body parts for a living. The horror.
As for Hobo's...we don't have them in the Seattle area, but they can be found in Eastern Washington. Giant House Spiders are related to Hobo's but are not poisonous, or aggressive. They will, however, push out Hobo spiders if sharing habitat's.
I'm a preschool teacher and have done a lot of research on House Spiders because they're so prevalent here. We've captured them for class observation, and kept them fed and happy.
My advice, ignore them and they'll ignore you.
King County even has a page on hobo spiders: http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/an…
I also saw one walking down the sidewalk. I kid you not.
Oh, and about cats taking care of spiders. As long as you don't have a armenian/persian/afghan rug with the stylish designs that make great spider camouflage the cats should be able to see the spider. One morning/afternoon along time ago I saw a house spider moving around on my parents Armenian rug and the cat was sitting right in front of me and didn't even notice the spider who was clearly moving around. I had to take care of the spider myself.
This spider is thought to have a necrotic venom, similar to the brown recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa). However, the "jury is still out" on this fact; the research results that were used to report the necrotic effects of the venom have not been consistently reproduced. It may or may not be as dangerous as people have been led to believe... just be mindful and use caution when dealing with these spiders. [update 7/18/2011] A paper published in the Journal of Medical Entomology in March 2011 states this in its ending paragraph "
In my mind I know they are harmless, even helpful, just trying to live their lives in peace. Yet I have to keep myself from swatting at them. I have learned enough to not kill them, but if I find one in my house I will not sleep until I've shooed it out and locked the door.
@42: neurological damage from a spider bite is as plausible an explanation as any for Supreme's delusions.
My first introduction to one of these spiders was when I was studying at UW. I dropped a large physics textbook on one from elbow height, and the textbook bounced off! The spider then ran off into my bathroom. After 5 minutes of the hibbily-jibbilies, I finally took the textbook and jumped on it at the same time.
Hobo spiders are assholes, and their bite causes neurological damage like the brown recluse spider.
Here's how to make your home less inviting to spiders:
Spiders have taste buds in their legs. So, if you want to keep them out of a window, room or whole house, use essential oils like eucalyptus, citrus, lavender, mint, tea tree, clove or cinnamon. Spray or apply oils to window frames, door frames, and baseboards at least once per week. I spray lavender on my bedroom windows, curtains and bedding almost daily and clean my bathroom & kitchen with citrus oils & soap.
Spray webs or their "insect grave yards" with soap & lemon oil.
For the determined, horny males who are dammed & determined to trespass, I have a little, container vacuum to catch & release them far from my house in a wooded area near a river.
However, I've come to despise hobo spiders with their aggressive, reactionary behavior (and they're a bit stupid); so, they are not welcome in my home. A few have met their swift end after trespassing. They had it coming.
It's the only way to be sure.
Ahahahahaha... Those long skinny legs ARE THE PERFECT LOCK PICKS!
The animal part of my brain wants to scream like a little girl, and cower in terror.
The animal part of my brain always kicks in first when I see a big assed spider like that. It's a toss up whether or not the rational part of my brain can assert itself before I kill the fucking monster.
http://pep.wsu.edu/pdf/PLS116_1.pdf
You're all so misinformed, it's damn depressing.
Most dermatological wounds and the like are either the result of a blood sucking insects bite being scratched an then getting infected or the afflicted having the poor luck that a particular opportunistic bacterial disease getting a good foothold in the dermis.
People attribute these to spiders because they were rooting through spider infested areas like wood piles, and don't stop to consider that they probably got the infection from a scratch against the woodpile or the like.
http://spiders.ucr.edu/necrotic.html
See the table halfway down the page headed: "Conditions that have been misdiagnosed as brown recluse spider bites as reported in the medical literature"
But my pest-control-expert-dad says they help keep the smaller local Hobo spider population in check, and they are relatively harmless to humans, so I try to let them be. As long as I don't actually catch them indoors, in which case, they must die. If I can catch them. And if there is no possibility of them jumping on my or touching me in any way.
People are way over reacting to these spiders. Go ahead and kill them because they are unsightly and frighten you, but don't justify your killing by touting their dangerousness.
The native / nonnative issue with these species is kind of a lost cause, so that is a shitty justification too. If you want to kill - kill honestly.
This is one of those very rare occasions when I am grateful for hearing loss.
Anyway, the best way to keep the small hobo spiders out of your house is to encourage the giant version tegenaria duellica, also called tegenaria gigantea, to come and settle inside your house, or right outside, like in your roof or under your house. Because they EAT hobo spiders.
Every autumn, some males (they have big pseudopalps, all covered in spider semen, females have little ones) do come and visit my house, and I take great care to capture them (an upturned plastic cup and a paper work great) and to put them back outside, since I don't have any females settled inside. And yes, when they walk on paper it makes an audible scraping noise, and it's a bit creepy ! When female have settled, they very rarely travel outside of their funnel web, usually installed near a source of light, like an always closed window, or a door - they're not cumbersome companions.
Either he's found romance but wasn't quick enough, and has been eaten by the lady of his choice, or he survived and found the way out by himself. Male spiders roam the land in search of females in autumn, they're absolutely not looking for a permanent home.
They will never knowingly touch you. It takes a lot of someone repetedly touching and bothering one to entice it into biting - they don't bite if you're just letting them freely crawl on your hands. And the bite only feels like being punctured by a thin pin.
@69 There are no recluse spiders on the west coast.
http://spiders.ucr.edu/brs.html
(For those who don't usually befriend spiders: right by their faces, spiders have a fifth pair of small limbs called pedipalps. Take a close look, and if they just look cylindrical at the end (lacking much swelling, like cat's paws) it's either a female or immature male. If there is a bulbous structure of some sort, it's a mature male sporting semen decanters. Males load these up from the testis in their bellies, then carry the goodies around looking for a female to serve it up to.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_widow…
http://seattletimes.com/html/homegarden/…
In my years living on Vancouver Island, I only saw a spider this size once...which was sufficient I think.
clearly, arachnophobes shouldn't be authorized to write articles regarding spiders. the writer should be someone with proper curiosity (not that "know the enemy" horseshit), or at least someone who knows someone, and the editor should be a relatively neutral party who can remove gratuitous triggers.
Filthy house has large pests!
Next...
The Cane Spider. They were about the size of my hand. Trap under clear Tupperware bowl, then slide a thin piece of cardboard under them, flip, and gently set in yard and remove cardboard lid (running away with your arms waving, if appropriate).
I knew they were "good" pest, but fuck, I gotta get some sleep. Which reminds me... hang on...
http://postimg.org/image/viss3hjb1/
Found lurking on a surfboard in a garage in Mexico. It had a body about the size of a crayfish, ran kinda like a spider, and those feelers probably extended about a foot each.
The tailless whipscorpion is one crazy little beast.
SPREAD IT OUT UNDER A LAMP ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH.
I can admire spiders of every species -- from a distance. A large, comfortable, non-touching distance. It is good to know that the GHS will triumph over its more vicious cousins, because hobos/recluses are my nightmares. (I lived in Eastern Washington for a few years and count myself fortunate to have escaped unscathed.)
Not long after I moved back to Seattle, I got a rather obnoxiously large and itchy double bite that seemed questionable, so I thought in my naivete to Google 'brown recluse bite.' With SafeSearch off. I do not at all recommend that anybody do this, ever -- though admittedly I felt rather better about my itchy bite after that.
@24, when you do that, the spider will just walk back out the other way. Then he will hunt you down & show you no mercy!
I have currently more than a dozen of pholcus phalangioides on my ceilings, and we live very peacefully together. Whenever one tries coming down in the day, I push it up with my hand and they go back to hanging up there. I usually let the shower down the tub so that they're not trapped when they come down looking for water during the night.
@89 that's my method too.
@97 I was raised to freak out about spiders, so despite all my education since, I still have an irrationnal reaction of fear at first sight of a spider, unlike bees and wasps. I decided not to transmit this stupid phobia further, so I'm always acting totally serene in capturing spiders in public. And it works !
When my youngest came to me one day, very proud of having succeeded in getting a spider to walk on his head, I felt a bit tense and answered : "be a good chap, release this poor beast back outside ; it's not a circus animal, you might hurt it in a sudden move, and it's probably very afraid". I did cringe inside when he said "ok mum" and grabbed it quite calmly from his head by hand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opiliones
They don't look all that similar to me, but the proportions of the DLL and the pholcid are not too much different. Their behaviors are completely different (DLLs don't make a web, pholcids never leave theirs), so it would be hard to confuse them if one actually looked at what the animal was doing for one fucking second.