Finding Huge Spiders Everywhere

[Catholic Fox]

[img]http://m2.wnymedia.net/files/2009/11/hank-scorpio.gif[/img]

[tinytherese]

I remember in elementary school when I was in girl scouts and took a weekend to go camping. On the first night when we were getting ready to go to sleep, one of my tent buddies found a wolf spider in our's and we were scared. I might have been the most freaked out. I had never heard of that kind of spider before and the name along with the description that it was big, made me especially uncomfortable. I never saw the thing and didn't want to. One of the girls went to the tent next to ours where some older girls who outranked us were kind of councelors in training and asked them for help. They chickened out.

[Nihil Obstat]

[img]http://notcliche.com/siriru/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/KILL-IT-WITH-FIRE.jpg[/img]

[tinytherese]

[img]http://www.the-reel-mccoy.com/movies/1998/images/mulan2.jpg[/img]

Edited May 31, 2010 by tinytherese

[rhetoricfemme]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='31 May 2010 - 05:19 PM' timestamp='1275340746' post='2121488']
[img]http://notcliche.com/siriru/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/KILL-IT-WITH-FIRE.jpg[/img]
[/quote]
Somebody give this guy a +1 for me!!! And maybe one or my husband, too. Hubs isn't Catholic and doesn't want to be, but he reads PM over my shoulder and I'm beginning to think that Nihil is inadvertently converting him. No pressure.

[The Bus Station]

Looks like a wolf spider to me, too! We have plenty of those around here. I've seen many brown recluses in my time as well, and they are much smaller than that. It's rare that brown recluses are much larger than a nickel. Also, brown recluses have a distinct pattern on their back that looks exactly like a violin.

My brother was bit by a wolf spider just a couple of weeks ago and besides some initial soreness, he was fine.

[Lounge Daddy]

[quote name='Raphael' date='31 May 2010 - 02:26 PM' timestamp='1275333969' post='2121370']
Oops, meant to give you a HUGE +1, but hit the wrong one. Someone please correct it.
[/quote]
I gave him a plus 1. That partly fixed it.

[Jesus_lol]

i keep reading the thread title as "F***ing Huge Spiders Everywhere" which seems more appropriate

[Catholic Fox]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' date='31 May 2010 - 05:07 PM' timestamp='1275343631' post='2121543']
i keep reading the thread title as "F***ing Huge Spiders Everywhere" which seems more appropriate
[/quote]

Yeah, my mind saw that at first as well.

I >hate< spiders!

[Cherie]

Yeah, I'm leaning more towards wolf spider. Was it hairy at all? That's a definite sign of a wolf spider.

I'm quite sure it's not a brown recluse. When I was in the convent in Alabama, we had a HUGE brown recluse scare. Any spider we saw was promptly caught in a jar and brought to our pest control people -- not once did we catch a brown recluse (although some of them sure looked like one, in our opinion!) We had heard horror stories of brown recluse spiders, and since we had seen with our own eyes that we did indeed have black widows around, we wanted to make sure our convent wasn't infested with another potentially dangerous spider!

It got to the point where the pest control people brought us a brown recluse trap that they had at a nearby house that was infested with them, so we could see what they looked like for ourselves. They definitely looked a little bit different than we had seen in pictures, from what we could tell. One thing about them is that they are very clumsy spiders. Click here http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/images/pcspiders_clip_image047.jpg to see a picture of one, and its size. (I don't know how to do "spoilers", and I don't want to post a picture someone else wouldn't want to see!)

There was what we think was a wolf spider IN OUR BED, under the covers a few weeks ago. I was sleeping, and then my husband came to bed, pulled over the covers on his side, and saw it. Ugh, to think I was SLEEPING in the bed with that thing right next to me!!!!

Here's another helpful site: http://www.termite.com/spider-identification.html Even though they aren't actual pictures, as I know from birdwatching, sometimes the guides are better when they AREN'T pictures; like I said above, none of the pictures of the brown recluse that we saw did justice to the real thing. Sometimes lighting, angles, etc. can affect whether or not an actual picture is a good representation.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='rhetoricfemme' date='31 May 2010 - 04:33 PM' timestamp='1275341581' post='2121507']
Somebody give this guy a +1 for me!!! And maybe one or my husband, too. Hubs isn't Catholic and doesn't want to be, but he reads PM over my shoulder and I'm beginning to think that Nihil is inadvertently converting him. No pressure.
[/quote]
[img]http://images.funadvice.com/photo/image/old/45730/WhosAwesome.jpg[/img]
Same to your husband.

[IcePrincessKRS]

[quote name='rhetoricfemme' date='31 May 2010 - 03:11 PM' timestamp='1275329515' post='2121278']
Sigh, yes. Thank you, Fox!

I was looking around at termite.com, too, and I these were my best "logical" guesses. I took the captured spider over to my neighbor, and she said they don't have any spiders at all. And that she saw tons of this particular spider when she lived in Tennessee, and she believes it to be a brown recluse. I looked up recluses, and while my spider doesn't look like one, it seems to have the behavior of one. Apparently I should be looking for 6 eyes instead of 8 to tell if it's a recluse.

All I see is... Eyes...
[/quote]

I'm 99% sure it's a wolf spider. I've done a lot of googling and researching on brown recluse spiders to make sure what I found in my house wasn't one. lol Creepy as all get out but at least it gave me some piece of mind. Brown recluses aren't supposed to be in the area where I live.

[quote name='tinytherese' date='31 May 2010 - 05:44 PM' timestamp='1275338697' post='2121459']
Ick, I hate spider pictures. Why did God have to make such creatures and insects for that matter? Since we're on the topic [b](NO PICTURES PLEASE. I'm way too squeemish.)[/b], in which states of the U.S. can tarantula's and scorpions be found? I hate those things.
[/quote]

I don't know about tarantulas but scorpions are actually fairly widespread. I found this out after my friend found one in her pantry. So, me being the avid (and sometimes not so bright) googler that I am, I looked it up. I found that in my state there are not one but TWO native species of scorpion. They usually live in wooded and/or mountainous areas. http://www.angelfire.com/tx4/scorpiones/states.html There are no pictures at this link and you can see if they are in your state (if you click the links for your state you [i]will[/i] see pics, though).

[jiyoung]

[quote name='southern california guy' date='31 May 2010 - 05:58 PM' timestamp='1275339488' post='2121473']
Italians are much more productive.
[/quote]

Totally unrelated--but this is counterintuitive to me, considering my experience with the organizational skills of the Italian people while I was studying abroad...

[Luigi]

Remember "Arachnaphobia?"

[Luigi]

BTW, a fly swatter works on spiders, too - at least most of the time. It won't do very well if the spider's on a soft surface lie the rug or the couch. Keep a Kleenex with you, too, so you can wipe the remains off the wall after a successful swat.