Another spider thread

[SatansFaith]

I really hate spiders. Really. I can kill them... if they're small and, preferably, already dead. But only after working up my nerve, even if I don't actually have to touch them. Arachnaphobia at its finest.

So, I'm on the front porch this afternoon, decorating for Halloween, when I see this... thing... on the bricks near the top of the front door. It almost looked like a mushroom growing on the side of the house. When I looked a little closer, I realized that it had fuzzy, banded legs. A freakin' spider. A big, ugly freakin' spider that didn't look like anything I'd ever seen before. It had a light brown bulbous abdomen (it really did kinda look like a mushroom to me - probably the size of a quarter in diameter) with a darker brown "V" shape on it. It kinda reminded me of a hermit crab, all tucked into a shell. When I'd pissed it off with bug spray, I realized that the legs were incredibly (and horribly) long; including leg span, this thing was probably at least 4-5 inches long.

Talk about the heebie-jeebies. I did some research - I can't tell you how creeped out I have to be to actually voluntarily take pictures of it (I'll add them later lest anyone else should wish to be creeped out) and then look at additional pictures of spiders on the internet for purposes of identification - and it looks like it's probably an orb-weaver, possibly a cross spider or a pumpkin spider, though none of the pictures that I found look exactly like the spider I found (and sprayed liberally with bug spray from a distance of about 7 feet.) Harmless or not, it was big and ugly and I just want to curl up in the fetal position and cry for about three days or until my skin stops crawling.

Maybe not the creepiest spider thread, but far creepier than I ever needed to start. That is all.

[Al.]

Broiled.


Good eatin'.

[Jeffro600]

I too am interested in what kind of spider this is...i had one in my garage that looked identical a couple years ago...freakin made my skin crawl!!! Took the propane torch to it...agressive little bastards too! It reared up and got all crazy when i got close with the torch and started comin at me!

[Tom N]

Yeah thats a needtobedeadus spider! ;)

[creepycrawler]

SPIDER!!!!!!!!!

[landmark]

:shrug: Doesn't look like 4-5 inches to me. Doesn't really look too much bigger than the width of the mortar between the bricks. I'd say it looks like an everyday Catface Spider. Sentiments on the creepiness though. One of these lives in my air conditioner. I don't go near it.

http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/CoopExt/4dmg/images/catFace6.jpg

http://people.uleth.ca/~dan.johnson/bws/dj_catspider_sk27.JPG

Edit: did some more poking around. Here's some more info I found on a CSU webpage...

"One of the most common but unusual spiders people encounter late in the season is the cat-face spider, Araneus gemmoides. It tends to make its webs near lights and in corners along the outside of buildings. Full-grown females can be quite large and have a combination of odd projections on the abdomen as well as dark indentation markings that some say resemble the ears and eyes of a cat.

Despite their large size and bizarre appearance, cat-face spiders are harmless to humans."

[Mike Boyle]

You know the pics would look petter if you got a little closer to the subject! :flipoff2:

While we are on the subject of spiders, if any of you have a black widow that's building webs, but you can't find it, spray the web with WD-40. When the spider crawls across the web it will absorb the WD-40 through its legs and will kill it. Don't know if this will work on any other spiders, but its great for killing thoes stuipd bitches.

[Frank Z]

I spend alot time in crawl spaces so I get to see my fair share of the darn things. Generally I leave them alone, they're more afraid of us big two legged bugs than we are of them. From time to time I have been known to use the greatest bug killer known to man....Mapp Gas!

[Yota]

That looks like some of the spiders I've seen. If the ones I've seen are cat-face spiders, they tend to make their webs at dusk in front of bright exposed lights, but they take them down in the morning only to put them up again the next night.

I've seen these spiders in lots of different parts of the country, and I've always been impressed with how tidy they are. I even had one that I considered my little buddy that would make its web nightly in front of a place that I used to live. With almost any other kind of spider, I'd have had to kill it because I can't stand spiders when there's a chance that they could get on me. But with that one, I'd just give it the hook up by leaving my light on and it never had any reason to enter my house. :)

[rch]

Shall the loonitarks bring death upon you! :slap: :ban:

[Frank Z]

Shall the loonitarks bring death upon you! :slap: :ban:let me be the first to say....

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?

[rch]

let me be the first to say....

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?

haha, it was a long weekend, That is all.

[SatansFaith]

That looks like some of the spiders I've seen. If the ones I've seen are cat-face spiders, they tend to make their webs at dusk in front of bright exposed lights, but they take them down in the morning only to put them up again the next night.

Orb-weavers, according to yesterday's research. Pumpkin spiders, cross spiders - and cat-face spiders, apparently - fall into this category. One of the characteristics of this type of spider is that they take down (or actually eat) their webs each day, rebuilding them every night. That could be why I've never seen this thing before. It could also be that they grow quite suddenly around this time of year, causing most of us to believe that they're simply appearing suddenly.

Still... lemme tell you... when I have a spider with an abdomen the size of a large marble (I was able to look a *little* more closely after the stupid thing finally died from a healthy dose of poison) next to my door, I'm creeped out. I just don't think I care what kind of spider it is!

... though, I do feel better knowing that it's mostly harmless. Kinda. Okay, maybe not.

[SatansFaith]

:shrug: Doesn't look like 4-5 inches to me. Doesn't really look too much bigger than the width of the mortar between the bricks.
The abdomen was slightly bigger than the width of the mortar - but "tall," too, if that makes sense. And that was before she stretched out her long, creepy, fuzzy, banded legs. I believe that I said in my original post that the 4-5 inches included leg span. IMO, legs are one of the really creepy characteristics of spiders. Like someone else mentioned, after her poison shower ended she reared up on those hind legs... it was ick.
"One of the most common but unusual spiders people encounter late in the season is the cat-face spider, Araneus gemmoides. It tends to make its webs near lights and in corners along the outside of buildings. Full-grown females can be quite large and have a combination of odd projections on the abdomen as well as dark indentation markings that some say resemble the ears and eyes of a cat."
Did you read the "quite large" part? Yeah. That's all I'm sayin'. (Though, while I'm convinced that it is in the same family, I don't think it was a cat-face spider, just based on markings and overall coloring.)

[Waifer2112]

I love these spiders!! I've yet to see one inside my home, and they keep lots of bugs from coming in. The other day, I came out of my front door and broke one of their webs. The spider had a moth in it's grip, and the two of them swung on a thread and hit me on the shoulder. It was a little wierd, because of what felt like a big weight. I let it live, and it rebuilt it's web that night. My g-friend doesn't like them...AT ALL! so I had to tear it's web down.:mad:

[Jesse]

So one spider thread wasn't good enough...........Jeebus!!!!!!!!!!!

Gonna' sleep with a can of Raid on the nightstand tonight!!!

[Oscar]

What?

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/insect_desert.jpg

[Oscar]

OK here is local fella Aphonopelma coloradanum Colorado Tarntula




http://www.insectimages.org/images/768x512/5304019.jpg

[thenimirra]

crap, I don't even know why I decided to open this thread. Lord knows I'm terrified of spiders....

why did I have to look....

It's like a car accident...you can't help but stare when you drive by.

[Tom N]

What?

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/insect_desert.jpg

Nice!