Now Look What I found Under the Kids Slide!

[Tyson Schmidt]

Hmmmm.........


I think I'll go home and hug my cockroaches after this. They probably keep the spiders away.

[masraum]

Originally posted by 88BlueTSiQuest
That's just a Garden Orb spider variety. Not dangerous, and they eat mosquitos and flies, not too bad to have hanging around the garden.

Unless you hit one of those 10Ft webs face first. Then I think the manly thing to do is run screaming like a little girl as was stated earlier.

[WolfeMacleod]

I caught this little bugger in our place about a month ago.
Wish we could have kept it. I like bats!

[masraum]

Cool, (well, maybe not in the house) I wanted to put up a bat house and have a place that would probably be perfect, except that the guano would drop onto the roof for the back porch and would probably be very nasty.

[M.D. Holloway]

I think the lil' critters get their share of rabies. Then again, WRGrace made a fortune on bat ***** 100 years ago...

[austin552]

Just found this mean mother on the front porch. Big too, about an inch long. Hate to kill her but she close to the front door.

[austin552]

These two are clearer. Anyone know what she is?

[carnutzzz]

In Florida we called those banana spiders. Sometimes we would run into them face first riding bikes down a trail. We would of course, fall off our bikes swatting and screaming like a little girl.

When I bought my house here in ATL there was a huge one in the yard(maybe 4 inch legspan). Since I was weedwacking I hit it with the spinning line- bad idea! Spider juice all over my face and body. After that, I just don't gross out quite as easily anymore.

I was just thinking about starting a spider thread- just caught a brown widow in the garage. Was going to free it in the yard behind the creek, but maybe I'll just kill it.

[LeeH]

We stayed in a cabin near Sequioa/Kings Canyon, CA last month. My wife and I were outside and I kept seeing bats flying just over her head. Then we noticed scratching sounds inside the walls of our cabin. We watched closely and discovered our entire cabin was a bat house!

[M.D. Holloway]

austin552 - looks very similar to what is called a common graden spider, I'm sure they bite but I don't think they will hurt like a recluse or widow.

carnutzzz - Brown Widow? I have heard of them but nor seen any - can you take a pic and post?

[Noah930]

That "banana spider"--looks quite similar to some I saw ALL OVER Hawaii last fall. Man, they were everywhere, and like you said, they were BIG. Probably not the same species, given the distances involved. But they sat on these webs, with their legs paired just like in your picture.

[austin552]

Update!! She caught a bee and wrapped it up for later. This stuff is cool. guess I will let her stay.

[austin552]

This is it!

Photographic image by Patrick Edwin Moran of Argiope aurantia, a large, beautiful weaver of spiral (orb) webs. These spiders are striking appearance for protective purposes. Their venom is not greatly toxic to humans or other mammals.

[Noah930]

Another Cliff Claven moment: the most poisonous spider is actually the Daddy Long Legs we see running around garages and basements. But their mouthparts are too small to bite us, and are therefore not deadly to humans. Lucky for us.

*Note, like with Cliffie, this information is strictly hearsay, and not double-cross-referenced. I do not profess any professional entomologic background.

[M.D. Holloway]

Noah930 - how would one know that they are that poisonous if they have never bitten anyone to prove the threory?

[carnutzzz]

Lube- I took some pictures with my camera but don't know how well they turned out- I'll download them to my PC tonight.

Brown widows are more popular than blacks in the South East. The venom is twice as toxic as blacks, but they don't inject as much and aren't as aggressive so they are considered less dangerous.

Here is a picture of one:

http://sarasota.extension.ufl.edu/IPM/imgfiles/BrWdow/hrglsrear.htm

One interesting characteristic I observed- they will play dead if they are messed with too much. Even sticking legs out at various angles- pretty cool looking.

[jyl]

Fun things to do in the backyard #104:

Shoot those spiders with a paintball gun. The web is the target and the spider is the x ring. Surprisingly challenging and fun for the whole family.

[88BlueTSiQuest]

Originally posted by Noah930
Another Cliff Claven moment: the most poisonous spider is actually the Daddy Long Legs we see running around garages and basements. But their mouthparts are too small to bite us, and are therefore not deadly to humans. Lucky for us.

*Note, like with Cliffie, this information is strictly hearsay, and not double-cross-referenced. I do not profess any professional entomologic background.

Cliff Claven moment taken into consideration before my reply here


The Daddy Longlegs actually can be considered up to 3 different species of insect, at which only 1 species is truly a spider.

The May Fly or Crane Fly in some areas are called Daddy Longlegs, due to it's long legs. The May Fly actually looks like a gigantic Mosquito, though I do not know if it bites or not.

The common long legged house spider might also be called a Daddy Longlegs in some areas. These normally weave webs with no true pattern, and usually lay dorment until something happens into the web. Aside from the legs, they are a relatively small spider with weak venom. The spider can bite if provoked, and usually results in just a minor irritation not even to the same extent of a Mosquito bite.

The True Daddy Longlegs isn't actually a spider at all. The only characteristic it even shares with spiders is that of having 8 legs and molting to grow. They are also known as Harvestman in some areas. Spiders all have 2 body parts, aside from the legs, they have a head and an abdomen. Daddy Longlegs only have one body part(Head, Abdomen and Thorax all in one part). The Daddy Longlegs doesn't produce any venom at all, the only chemical it does produce is a pheromone that is released when the Longlegs is threatenned, and this is just a foul odor to ward off predators.

[EdT82SC]

Originally posted by Noah930
Another Cliff Claven moment: the most poisonous spider is actually the Daddy Long Legs we see running around garages and basements. But their mouthparts are too small to bite us, and are therefore not deadly to humans. Lucky for us.

*Note, like with Cliffie, this information is strictly hearsay, and not double-cross-referenced. I do not profess any professional entomologic background.

Not true. Daddy Long Legs are not even spiders and they are not poisonous. Though I did see a really big Daddy long legs with about a 2" leg span catch a wolf spider with about a 1" leg span a couple weeks ago.

I've killed over 200 black widows in my yard in the last few months. There was a few weeks where I was finding 30-50+ a week. Now it's down to a few a week. I go out several nights a week and go hunting.

I found a possum up my avacado tree a few nights ago while hunting black widows. I'll have to pick up some rat poison for him. A few years ago I had a possum make his home under the deck we used to have in the back yard. We had fleas like you wouldn't believe until I killed him. I'd go out into the back yard with white socks on, and have dozens of fleas jump onto my legs in a minute. As my wife and I say, "The only good possum is a dead possum".

[Joeaksa]

Just hit the news yesterday. A house here in Phoenix had something like 22 bats living inside. Believe it was in the attic but who cares. Just what you want to have around at night while you sleep..

Joe A