I do not, however there are a few venomous varieties around so I tend to exercise caution when I see them or if I know they may be around. This guy was on the down spout on the corner of my garage, and that is right where I left him (her?)
 |
| A Brown Recluse |
These are usually found in larger numbers much further south than Kommiecticut, but they are around here too. Habitat is moist dark areas. They only bite when you reach somewhere blindly and confine them against your flesh. Their bite can cause spreading necrosis of your skin, for which the only cure is surgically cutting away the affected area.
My wife calls all large spiders tarantulas, and she came into the house from the garage the other night to get me to move one. She knows they are beneficial and won't kill them, and knows I will come relocate it if she asks. I keep an old coffee can handy for these relocations because they can't get out until I release them. She found a very large Wolf Spider on some boxes she uses for dog training and it was easily moved into the can. She wanted a good look at it before I brought it outside, and as tempting as it was to thrust the can at her and yell "Braaaaaghh!" I did not. If I did that she would then rather kill every spider than to call me to move it in the future. Just doing my part for the environment, I guess. The spider was taken outside and the can tipped so the spider could get out and onto the Azalea bush by the door. I have found them traversing my driveway at night, because the LED motion sensor light reflects back on their tiny eyeballs. The light comes on when I go out to my truck, the spiders don't trip it.
We have other species of spiders that will put up and maintain a web during the summer, most commonly Black and Yellow Orb Weavers. I will catch a moth or fly and throw it into the web and watch the spider come and quickly dispatch it. One usually ends up in the basement window frame when I pull the screen out to put in the air conditioner, so the web is reachable. My version of feeding time at the zoo.
Black and Yellow Orb Weavers.
ReplyDeleteOne set up last year,with the web attached to a vertical support on the deck,going out across the hedges. Quite a few hours of sitting, watching, as it stripped its web and rewove it. Hoping for bunches this year.
@Justin_O_Guy: Amazing engineers, buulding and repairing those complicated web structures.
Delete10-11 years old, running between the rows in the cornfield in late July, I stopped and 2 inches in front of me at face level was a black and yellow orb weaver and it was about 8 inches in size.
ReplyDeleteI nearly pooped !!!!
No fear of spiders, just don't like being surprised by them....
Matthew W: Yeah, I would have crapped myself in that cornfield.
DeleteYour 8 inch diameter description is very much like my wife's tarantula. To be fair to her though, Wolf Spiders do have hairy legs.
I only squash brown recluses, sorry. I have seen the necrotic cork that pops out after the bite wound heals, not from me though.
ReplyDeleteI'm with ya. When it comes to spiders and especially recluses and black widows, Hans, get the flammenwerfer.
Delete