Last week, the arthropod lab was lucky enough to be highlighted on the website “Montreal Openfile”. When discussing our work with spiders as related to McGill’s spider collection, I was asked about the most common misconception about spiders, and I responded quickly with the following:
There are a lot of misconceptions about spiders. The most common is the idea that spiders frequently bite people – they do not. Most so-called spider bites are caused by something else. Spiders generally have no interest in biting us, and would rather feed upon invertebrates. I have been working with spiders for over 15 years, and I have handled many, many kinds of live spiders and I have never been attacked by a spider.
It is really quite astounding – almost anyone you talk to seem to know someone who has been bitten by a spider and/or they themselves have a personal story about a spider that bit them. These stories often include anecdotes like “it really, really hurt“, “the wound swelled up and festered“, “I was bitten over and over again in the middle of the night“, “the spider ran right at me and bit me” etc. Related directly to this are the numerous questions I get about the brown recluse spider, and its occurrence in Quebec. If I believed everything that people told me, I would NOT be an Arachnologist, and I would fear for my life – Venomous spiders everywhere!!!
Time for a reality check – Spider bites are very, very rare and other more likely causal factors should be given priority. Let me go into detail:
1) Misdiagnosis: other animals are more likely to be the cause of so-called “spider bites”. The usual and more likely suspects include things like wasps, ants, bedbugs, black flies, etc. Message: these kinds arthropods are known to sting, bite, or “feed” upon mammals! (…and reactions to some of these can certainly be severe, and serious). How do I know that spiders rarely cause reactions in humans? Two reasons: experience and the scientific literature (i.e., evidence or lack thereof). For example, a few years ago colleagues of mine (Robb Bennett & Rick Vetter) wrote about this in a paper for Canadian physicians:
There are two key pieces of information in this article: first, the medical community must recognize the possibilities of other likely causal factors for symptoms sometimes attributed to spider bites. Second, to properly verify a spider bite, the spider needs to be collected and properly identified. This takes me to the next point – the importance of taxonomy.
2) Incorrect identification: Several years ago a woman approached me after a pest-control company sprayed her home – she brought me specimens of the ‘deadly’ spider that they had sprayed for. It was NOT a dangerous spiders – it was a completely harmless wolf spider (Family Lycosidae) from the genus Trochosa. She saw a spider, called in the professionals, and these professionals did not accurately identify the spider (they told her it was a brown recluse). TAXONOMY IS IMPORANT and TAXONOMIC EXPERTISE is essential. It is critical that a careful identification is done (by an expert!) on any spider that supposedly bites someone. In my experience, a casual image search on the Internet will not suffice, and will likely confuse the situation, and perhaps cause undue alarm. [as an aside, this blog post about 'the taxonomy fail index' is worth a look]
3) Spider behaviour: Spiders are “scared” of humans. Ok, I recognize this is anthropomorphizing things, but the reality is that if you approach a spider, it usually runs away, or completely ignores us. With the exception of jumping spiders, most spiders have very poor eyesight and respond to other stimuli (e.g., vibrations, light/dark). Humans make a lot of noise, and cause a spider’s entire habitat to shake, rumble and roll. Furthermore, spiders prefer to live in damp, dark places, and when we lift up an old shoe box, or sweep under the fridge, we sometimes disrupt a spider but if you wait a minute, they invariably run back to darkness. Spiders would rather run and hide than hang out with us.
4) Home range: Venomous spiders (i.e., to humans!) just don’t live in Canada. Of the almost 40,000 spider species, globally, there are less than a dozen or so that can cause serious health problems to the average, healthy human, and these do not occur naturally in Canada (Australia, however, is a different story!). One of the authors of the paper mentioned above (Rick Vetter) has a terrific website devoted to the “myth” of the brown recluse. Also, his list of publications will take you to some key literature on the broader topic of medically important spiders. Rick has put together a terrific map showing the distribution range of the brown recluse, and I’ve copied it below. As you can see, Canada is not part of the native range of the brown recluse (or its close relatives):
5) Spider food: Spiders prey upon invertebrates and for the vast majority of spider species their venom is suited for invertebrates. Their venom can certainly pack a punch, but it is generally not suited for vertebrates (at least certainly not in northern climes, there are spiders elsewhere who do prey upon birds, for example).
6) Biological constraints: For many species, the “fangs” of spiders (which are located at the end of the Chelicerae) are just too weak and small to be able to break the skin. I have held many spiders and watched as they work away at trying to bite me, but they just can’t pull it off. Our skin is generally too tough for their little, wimpy fangs. Here’s a photo to show this (it’s another wolf spider, trying unsuccessfully to bite me):
To summarize this rather lengthy post: in general, and in this part of the world, venomous spiders are rare, and bites from venomous spider bites are exceedingly rare, and I would argue that most suspected spider bites are not actually caused by spiders. The risk of a spider bite is very, very low. If you want to reduce risk, it’s far more dangerous to get in a car than be bitten by a spider.
Writing this post has inspired me to think about other misconceptions about spiders. Stay tuned…there’s a lot more to come!
Hey thanks for this. I’m a recovering arachnophobe and I have a love/hate relationship with spiders: some I absolutely adore (Orb weavers, jumpers), some I absolutely hate. I respect them all, think they’re brilliantly elegant, beautiful, amazing creatures. Some of them also terrify me. I even got a spider tattoo in my quest to embrace them (metaphorically speaking) and the complicated relationship I have with them.
I’ll buy your assertions that spiders bite way less often than they’re ascribed to. However – the ones that I most loathe (even while rather admiring their m.o. and survivability) and which everything I’ve read seems to indicate do bite, are yellow sac spiders (sorry that sentence isn’t remotely grammatically correct). They are ubiquitous here in central MN, although I never saw them growing up in far northern MN. Due to their hunter/stalking nature they get damn everywhere, as they tuck/sac themselves into any/every nook/cranny you can imagine – which unfortunately includes lots of places that put them into contact with me. I’ve flicked or unkindly disposed of them (s/times in their sacs) from beneath collars, in folded up clothing, in my bedding, in folds of shower curtain, dropping on me from above (that thing they do!) and most visibly in the corners of rooms.
I’ve learned to not anthropomorphize the unfortunate creatures, to not ascribe nefarious and malicious intentions/motives to them. I try to remember that their no-not-at-all-creepy stalker/hunter m.o. and springing-at-me-from-everywhere is good for me because they nom bugs I don’t like/want in my house. I try to remember that if/when they do bite, it’s likely from being startled/upset – not because of a house-wide plot to kill me, and that hey at least it’s not lethal. I try, I really try – but I haven’t yet mastered my fear/outrage/violence towards them such that I don’t stomp/squish them to pieces whenever they’re within reach (and even s/times they’re not). In the end I find it hard to be friends or even peaceful co-existers when they’re constantly invading my privacees.
Clearly I’m a bit obsessed/fixated.
Thanks for the comment and I appreciate your sentiment. And I also recognize that Arachnophobia is real, and important. Btw, I do plan on eventually writing a post about the yellow sac spiders. I get a lot of requests for info about them
However, the Australian huntsman spider is big enough to bite, and so I was just recently. It didn’t hurt so much as feel like something pulling the hairs on my leg, but I saw the beast (I gently released her – I think it was a female – into the wild and then went in search of first aid, which I couldn’t find). Since huntsmen do not brush their chelicerae, it got mildly infected.
As a kid I used to keep redback spiders who are quite venomous, and yet, here I am.
That was impressively and terribly calm-reacting of you.
Huntsmen are terribly calm spiders. I used to feed them by hand [you need to stun a fly but not silence it or the spider won't "see" it]; and it wasn’t her fault. I was trying to dry myself with her in a towel. I’d have bitten me. Mind, I reacted pretty much like any arachnophobe at first. That startle response is hard to overcome.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who feeds spiders. Isn’t there some rule that if two or more do a thing it makes you not a nutter? I’ll go with that
.
I feed the orb weavers when they appear on the scene circa August. Not that they need my help, mind you, being fantastically competent to capture their dinner themselves. I just love to watch, and well I’m fond of them.
Well and I cop to not really having arachnophobia in a clinical sense (I think) – I’m just freaked the hell out by some of them. And over time that continues to work itself out via my fascination with them and my continuing to not-die despite the fact they exist and clearly exist a lot in my immediate vicinity.
I’m studying to apply to med school, but initially weighed the notion of pursuing grad school for in some arachnological area/focus.
Anyway – thanks for your blog, as a hobbyist – I’m much appreciative of a good spidery-info-centric blog!
Hi again – thanks again for the comments – indeed, in (northern) North America, many of the orb-weavers mature in late season (i.e, Aug), so that’s the best time to see the adults in all their magnificence!
When you mentioned that spider venom is usually more suited for invertebrate prey I immediately thought of the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atrax robustus) whose venom, I’ve read, is particularly toxic to primates. Any speculation on the evolutionary origins of this unusual adaptation?
I can think of several: one is that the genus evolved in south east Asia and is only relictual in Australia. There are primates in Asia and they often eat spiders. Another is that they are venomous to another species that happens (but we do not know it yet) to lack the IgG protein we also do that inactivates the neurotoxic effects (say, bats or rats). A third is that it is an accident of evolution; accidents happen all the time. A fourth is that the mammal species in Austronesia have coadapted and independently evolved IgG. A fifth is that it works on potential prey animals when juvenile (it affects newborn mice). A sixth (for fun) is that there used to be primates in Australia, but they were all killed by funnelweb spiders… But I can’t find any studies on this.
Great post =). I’m glad I now have something to show my whole family who keep calling me to get rid of spiders in the house. “They eat friggin mosquitoes” didn’t seem to do it.
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Hi. Nice post, but your title is misleading. From the post, obviously they do bite, but only in very limited circumstances.
I’ve known two instances of confirmed bites (in Singapore, not Canada)- one orb weaver (Nephila sp.) where the idiot was holding the abdomen and got bitten, as well as a large jumping spider (Hyllus diardi) which had been sedated and was probably dazed so decided to bite the person handling. Both cases, the human was handling the spider, so you can probably put in another caveat – if you don’t want to get bitten, don’t handle the animal,.
Good post. However, I’ve been bitten by a wolf spider. And, I have NEVER been, nor am I now, an arachnophobe. I was up at Reelfoot Lake in TN, picked it up, and the damn thing bit me. Yeah. While I agree with the sentiment of your post – that people should not fear spiders – I disagree with your assertion premise, that “spiders do not bite.” Further, you do not provide evidence of what they do. If they don’t bite, what DO they do? Rub your belly? Sing the blues? Please. I have seen Black Widow spider bites, recluse spider bites and they aren’t pretty. Again, does that mean folks should fear all spiders? Absolutely not. But again, most folks don’t and won’t care as much as do you, or I. BTW, I am a Registered Nurse with ER & Trauma experience, so I’ve seen just about all there is to be seen – the good, the bad, and the dead. Again, I want to emphasize that while I enjoyed your post, and the sentiment that it hoped to express – that in general, spiders should not be feared – most folks are not going to be looking closely to identify what type spider they may see. Same thing with snakes. Remember the Jim Stafford song “I don’t like spiders and snakes”?
Thanks for these comments! I appreciate them. First, indeed, the title is meant to be ‘extreme’ in part because of the unbelievable number of websites and posts out there that claim that all spiders bite and that all spiders should be feared. I’m working to swing the pendulum the other way. The title is therefore meant to be a bit controversial. Second, this post is really more from the point of view of northern (Canadian) systems. My comments are not all generalizable to all parts of the world.
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I think I was bitten by a spider in the garden a couple of years ago. Can’t think what else could have caused a relatively painless bruise that went from the palm of my hand through to the back of my hand. (No, I’m not religious – it wasn’t a one-handed stigmata
.)
We have lots of different spiders in and around the house. I give any resident huntsmen a name – for some reason they like my bedroom and I often have a resident who stays for anything from a few days to a few weeks. Only one was freaked out and raced across the room when I entered – I helped it out the window. Usually we get along just fine.
In the garden there are redbacks, different orbs, leaf curlers, jumping spiders, wolf spiders and lots more large and miniscule. I don’t know all their names. The wolfs are great when they are carrying their young on their back.
My most memorable experience was one year some decades ago walking up the hill behind the house and coming across dozens of beautiful coloured large spiders – rich aqua, bright yellow etc. Glorious.
(BTW I live in Australia.)
Thanks for the comment and thanks for sharing – indeed, GLORIOUS is a nice way to state it. Australia is truly fascinating for its arachnofauna. It’s just a completely different world than north-eastern North America.
Hi. I have a basement that tends to lean during heavy rains. Old house. Cement drain around the inner wall. One corner has shelves, throw rugs, etc and it’s where I keep my rabbit since we have dogs in the main floor and no ac in the attic so she gets heat and ac in the basement. Anyway, we get a lot of camel crickets and tiny spiders but weeks ago I caught a wolf spider that was on bunny’s blankie in the bottom of her cage where she often sleeps. I put it outside. Tonight I found another in bunny’s little trashcan by her cage! I never kill stuff but these things are creeping me out now. I don’t want one to accidentally bite her if she startles one. Why are they by her cage?? Ive seen maybe three prior, one in my attic room. Two in a month is too many! Any way to keep them away from her cage? Don’t mind if they pick another corner and stay out of sight but I worry about bunny.
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Nice post… but you do have Brown Widows in Canada, and conceivably BRS, since I know you do import stuff and the little guys are somewhat notorous for hitching rides in nice dark shipping crates. Now I’m sure they all die off during the winters, but there could be outbreaks in the summer. Apparently there was one last summer in Nova Scotia, at least it was all over the news that there was.
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Just came across this thread… People who know a spider bit them because they can’t think of “what else could it could’ve been” may be suffering from a failure of imagination. I wrote about this for American Medical News a few years back — all the remarks in this article are by medical doctors, by the way: http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2002/08/05/hlsa0805.htm
Thanks, Nina! Great article…the link is much appreciated
Hello,
Around four years ago I was studying abroad in Australia. After a night of heavy drinking I woke up with a wound on my foot that was swollen red and had two clear puncture marks. As a irresponsible college student of course I didn’t go to a doctor (no health plan) but I had swelling and pain aroud the wound for a few weeks but it eventually went away but to this day I have a scar. To me the puncture marks are too close to be a snake but are wide enough to question whether it is a spider or not. They are still visible today and was wondering of u could shed any light on the incident?
A very short vampire?
Brett – thanks for the comment – interesting account – It’s hard to say, but it’s possible it was a spider bite, but difficult to know without you catching the spider in the act. The fangs of spiders are quite close together…if that helps at all. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much for writing this article you really are a life saver i was so scared about spiders and there bites but after reading what you wrote really changed my perspective on spiders shoo thank you very much
Stacy – thanks for writing – I am so glad this post has helped change your perspective!!
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OK so this may be a bit of a dumb question. Why do Daddy long legs like being sung to. I sing ALOT and I notice that the Daffy’s in particular seem to like my voice. The front legs will move and the daddy’s will actually come toward me and sit on my hand, arm or even my ear. I absolutely LOVE Daddy long legs! I have heard they are the most poisonous spider but due to the size of their mouth they can’t hurt us. I find them to be phenomenal creatures. Most other spiders scare the crap out of me though…Kind of dumb I know….So do all spiders gravitate towards singing? I have only noticed it in the Daddys.
I was bitten by a white (light beige actually) Araneus diadematus as a kid, I collected a lot of specimens -most of which I set free a week later-, the white one I found so pretty that I wanted to study her features a little while longer. When I returned her to freedom about another week later, she bit my finger quite fiercefully. It hurt like a forcefull fingerprick, but there was not even a visible penetrationmark let alone a festering wound.
I’ve got a housespider -which I believe to be a yellowsac, but I’m not sure-, that consistently comes to inspect my recordplayer whenever it’s playing a record. I guess it diggs the vibes.
Thanks for the comments! ….these comments about music and singing and responses by arachnids are quite interesting. Many (most?) Arachnids to respond to vibrations, so responses to various sounds could indeed happen. I will certainly look into this in more detail….
Brandi – Daddy longlegs are not venomous – they do not have venom glands – it’s a myth that they are dangerous to humans.
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While certainly most spiders don’t deserve the fear they get, I’m somewhat surprised that there’s no mention at all of black widows here, when they’re the most ubiquitous venomous spider in the US. I have a cousin who was bitten by a black widow (ID’ed) as a child and was ill for quite some time afterwards.
The key with spiders is knowing the ones that are dangerous, I think, and recognising that the rest are not. But (as it should be pointed out), it’s a stupid idea to handle venomous spiders unless you know what you’re doing.
While I was reading “spiders do not bite”- plenty of questions flooded inside me. As I have known (after my graduation in agriculture) that almost most spiders are farmers’ friend since they are categorized as a prominent predator. Beside the usefulness of spider, I have an experience about it. If, I recalled my childhood that I had some kinds of red pimples (about 20-30) near my elbow following the morning. There was nothing at all on my elbow at evening before going to bed. Though that was not spider’s biting symptom, but what my parents told me at that time, that was happen due to spider’s venom. The venom was spread at my elbow while the spider has been disturbed. That was not only my experience. we had many such incidents at my town because most of the houses were made from thatch and mud which provide ample space to harbor spiders. However, now I am fully satisfied with the writer that was not the symptoms of spider’s bit. If the spider was not bite anymore than what were those dozens of pimples at my elbow which were developed overnight?
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I was comforted to know that the bites that I sometimes wake up with (not flea or mosquito) aren’t due to the 8-leggers that often find their way on to the corners of my bedroom ceiling. I find it a little odd that I seem to wake up with these bites (not bed bugs, bites are bigger than mosquito-huge swelling) at the same time every year as the spider bloom that happens in late summer/fall. But ok. Spiders don’t bite. And then I remember 10 years ago when I lived in the redwood forest of Mendocino CA., when I got up in the middle of the night to use our composting toilet (the lid of which is always supposed to stay closed) and after I was done delivering my deposit, felt what can only be described as a bite on my ass. I screamed and jumped off (compost toilets are things you have to climb on to) and woke every one up. Someone came in with a flashlight (when you live off the grid in the middle if the forest and get woken up in the middle of the night, it’s often the first thing you grab) and they flashed it into the toilet after seeing the huge red mark on my cheek, and lo and behold there was a Spider in the toilet. Being people that believe in spider bites, none of us thought to look for another culprit besides the huge hairy arachnid looking disturbed on my shit. There weren’t any camera phones back then to make it easy to just take a pic, but I remember studying it before someone gathered it up and released it outside. It wasn’t sleek, it had hair. It had about a 2 inch leg span (sorry, the American measurement system is retarded) and it’s body was about an inch long. It was brown with some yellow or tan markings on its back that were quite pretty. I think if I were to see a picture now, even a decade later, I would recognize it. I surfed the web later to see if I could find out what it was, but it wasn’t the next day, because when I woke up the next day, I discovered that I couldn’t use my legs. I could feel them and everything, they were just jelly. And then the dizziness and nausea set in and I was put back to bed while the bite was examined for dead tissue or blackened skin (which is what we were told was the reaction of a brown recluse bite). Of course we all knew that brown recluses didn’t live up in our area, plus we had seen the little guy. I woke up like 8 hours later and I was completely normal. I have never had an experience like that before and haven’t since. I am not afraid of spiders. I think they’re cool. I’m a beekeeper and am very comfortable around insects in general and am familiar with what stings feel like. This was nothing like that. So… I appreciate this post about how spiders don’t bite. I like the idea of quelling people’s stupid fears. But I also, must respectably disagree with your assertation, as my ass can attest too!
I dont believe that spiders are bad creatures,I just get scared when they randomly pop in and out of places.I think I have araechniphoebia.
Anonymous, you can handle spiders without being bitten or having the spider fear you. You wouldn’t be able to have tarantulas as pets if they did. And I know a couple of YouTube channels where people own jumpers and other spiders as pets and never been bitten by them because the spider is so damn comfortable with them. What you should’ve said is “if you’re going to be a jackass and scare the poor spider when you handle it, don’t handle spiders”. The title is a litttle misleading but I absolutely agree that people think everything is a spider bite if its big and swollen. I’ve been bitten by a red velvet ant before and it turned purple almost instantly. It hurt a lot too. And double ironically, we had little wind scorpions there too, and I’ve NEVER been bitten by any of them. Also, spiders rarely bite. Unless you’re being a total complete jackasses, biting someone is a spiders last resort. I’ve had spider lunge off my or spin a web than hunger jump off me to safety when they were scared. So yeah, I agree. People think just because its a gnarly looking bruised up bite it MUST be a spider. You know what? Instead of hating on your local arachnids, who really want nothing to do with you do to their independent nature, why don’t you look up the THOUSANDS OF INSECTS that have enzymes that can rip you a new hole, literally.
This was a good post, thank you! And personally, funnel web spiders and jumping are my favorite. I’m from southern Wisconsin and we can get some huge farm raised wolf spiders. My younger brother and I would always try to find crickets to feed them. Hadn’t done it in a few years but this past summer we had a funnel type wolf spider web in our garage. When I started feeding it, it could have maybe fit on a dime. By the end of summer, just a couple months ago, it could have fit and then-some onto a quarter. My goal was to try and pick it up, but I moved and it got cold out. I do love picking up jumping spiders and having them launch off my finger and play with the anchor line. I wish I had a tamed spider as opposed to a store bought tarantula. I always thought they were the most boring spider lmao
Thanks, everyone, for the continuing discussion and comments! Keep them coming! Yes, it’s just too easy to blame a spider…
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i have heard recently that there have been spottings and “bites” of the brown recluse in alberta canada. i noticed that hobo spiders and brown recluse spiders look similar and are relatives. I personally think i have spotted one of these spiders in my bathroom but im also not a spider expert but it was large in size about the size of a quarter, brown skinny, and long thin legs, and ran very fast. (this sounds like a daddy long leg but it wasnt i know what those look like and this was not one.)
Hi! I’m not really scared of spiders, I’m just have a hard time holding one with bare hands. (If I have a thin glove on I don’t mind, as long as they are relatively small spiders). For some reason, I cannot get myself to kill a spider ever. Even if it’s huge, I can’t. I just catch it and let it go outside if it bothers me that much.
I say this only because I was up at like 5 in the morning and I was barefoot. I was sitting on my bed and I looked down to see a brown lump. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so my eyesight is VERY bad. Well, I went and got a clear bowl to put over the brown lump (I still didn’t know what it was at the time) and I threw it over the lump and I saw it spazz underneath. It was a spider, and when I put my glasses on, it was a lot bigger than I thought. It scared me. Lol. But, I did slide a cardboard underneath and took it outside.
Anyways, I came across this page because I saw a small spider crawling along the air mattress I’m sitting on. I don’t know where it is now, (haha) but I was curious if small spiders can bite. I only wasn’t sure because my old science teacher has a pet tarantula (i couldn’t get myself to hold it, I will someday though!) and she was explaining that it’s hard for a tarantula to bite human skin (especially if your hand is flat). It’s like trying to bite a wall is how she explained it.
So yeah, thank you for helping people (like me) try to understand these creatures a bit better! They are very misunderstood!
Thanks, Annabelle, for the comment. I agree – I think by understanding spiders to a deeper level, it is possible to learn not to fear them as much. Great that you took that spider outside! Well done.
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Nice post. I was watching continuously this website and I’m impressed! Extremely useful info especially the last part I care for such info much. I was looking for this specific information for a long time. Thank you and best of luck.
“Spiders do not bite. � Arthropod Ecology” was in fact a quite nice article, .
Continue publishing and I am going to keep reading! Thanks for
the post ,Mildred
My brother has told me that he has a spider friend. I have tried to do some research but can’t find any evidence of any spiders befriending humans. Supposedly when he plays his computer game the same spider comes close and watches him. Is there any possibility that spiders befriend humans?
Thanks for these comments! I do hope this post continues to provide valuable information for people. (Madison, no I don’t know of any spiders ‘befriending’ humans …)
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Geepers…thanks to everyone for the posts, quite interesting reading. I just bought a house in Granbury Texas and it’s a little off the beaten trail but still about 3 miles at most to town. There is a little creek bed like ditch about 35 feet behind my house with all the usual country trimmings seperating me from the neighbors 5 acre property on the other side. Next door a half rick of firewood sits on the ground. Several trees all around, with lots of leaves on the ground. Perfect for spiders, and just about anything else including snakes that live in the country in southern Texas. There must be at least 4 billion different specie of spiders living in my garage and all around the house. Some friendly…some come with a nasty bite. It took quite a while to find a house to buy and after 8 months of having everything in storage at 4 different storage facilities, moved everything “quickly” into the new house and garage. Having moved in only about 5 weeks ago, I still have to go through a hundred or so boxes which are being stored in the garage and in the house and was wondering if a pair of thin nitrile exam gloves would be enough protection from a Brown Recluse or Black / Brown Widow fang. There is a Recluse stuck on a glue board in a video on utube and the guy is poking at it with what appears to be a pencil. Naturally the spider tries to bite the pencil more than once as the guy was trying to show the fangs on the little critter. The fangs look pretty long and I thought may be able to puncture through nitrile exam gloves. The latex/nitrile gloves for house cleaning are just too bulky for going through papers and the boxes in the garage. I could use box handling gloves like they use for FedEx or UPS though they are a lot harder to sort papers and go through boxes of junk with.
How long can the fangs get on a Brown Recluse or a Black Widow? Long enough to go through nitrile exam gloves? The exam gloves are not very thick but thicker than the light weight latex or food handling gloves. I’m more concerned with the recluse than the widow because from what I’ve learned though their habits are simular, the recluse tends to be a bit more “active”.
Thank you Chris …. lots of good information here.
I’m trying to find the You-tube video of the guy poking at the recluse to draw a bite reaction. If I do I’ll come back and post the link.
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“Spiders do not bite. | Arthropod Ecology” atrexl ended up being a fantastic posting.
In case it included even more photos this would definitely be possibly even even better.
All the best ,Diego
It’s enormous that you are getting ideas from this piece of writing as well as from our dialogue made here.
Hello:) i am scared to death of spiders…so thanks so much for this article! It really helps me out! The picture of the spider “biting” you really brought it home for me. I did not realize there fangs were so weak! Seriously i am still extremely fearful but thanks for this!
Thanks for the comments! I am truly delighted that people are finding this post useful, and is perhaps helping spiders get a better name for themselves!
if this were true den y so many people get holes in there body. bed bugs r other insects dont leave holes. my cousin was bitten an the spider laid eggs in him. I have been bitten by various insects and no bite looks like the spider bite
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Great reading thank you, I have just come across a rather nasty looking critter whilst watering my seedlings. I guess it startled me more than anything. I have no idea what it was of course, dark brown with a large fat body and quite short fat hairy legs, carrying an egg sac. well it sent me scuttling in the house. I do feel better after reading all the information here, but i would love to have taken more notice of it to identify it
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Hello. I live in central Missouri where you can find black widows and brown recluse in almost everything. I am highly scared of these spiders. Especially with my 10 month getting into every nook and crany of my house. Is there anything I can do to assure my tiny one doesn’t come across one and try to play with it? Im trying to get over this fear of spiders but media etc isn’t helping. Your blog and comments are opening my eyes thank you all.
Thanks for your comments! I’m really pleased the blog is helping change some perceptions of spiders. Please spread the word!
Damn! I’ve been hanging around in the radioactive lab at work, trying to get spiders to bite me, and it turns out I’ve been wasting my time!
Ha! Thanks Sam – Great comment.
Their little wimpy fangs (conveniently you put up a picture of a tiny frail-looking spider)? Have you heard of the massive spiders like the Huntsman or the Goliath? The black widow alone is big. Christ. Spiders CAN bite, especially if they feel threatened. Doesn’t matter if it’s a mantis or a human. And venemous spiders can and have killed humans. That is nothing to dismiss or ignore. If you see a big or dangerous-looking spider your first instinct should definitely be to get away from it or if it’s in your home, to kill it. No one wants that in their homes. Same with wasps (although that is better dealt with by professionals).
I do however agree that wasps are a far greater problem than spiders.
Hello Liz – thanks for the comment. I certainly have heard of “massive spiders” but I had a good reason for for selecting a small spider for that photo – the vast majority of spider species are relatively small – in my region of the world, the Linyphiidae, for example, are the most diverse family yet are seldom larger than 5 mm. I am not dismissing or ignoring – I am providing some factual information to help ward against unnecessary paranoia about spiders and to provide some antidote against the tremendous amount of misinformation out there about spiders and spider bites. Of course some species can bite, but I maintain the point that spider bites are exceedingly rare.
I can’t thank you enough for this article. I’ve been told spiders do bite and such, so when I saw a spider in my room, I freaked and tried to kill it. I haven’t seen it in a while, so going to sleep was becoming difficult. Reading this made me feel a lot better.