gearbasher Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 I have spiders in my house. I leave them alone. They leave me alone. Then, I saw this one in my basement. I never saw one like it. It's about the size of a quarter (including legs). Can anyone ID it? I tried looking at pics on the web and can't really find a match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Pepper Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 If it looks like a violin and is brown it could be a Recluse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveFord Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 I'm pretty sure that's the kind you squish. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karloff Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 looks like a Brown Recluse. they can mess you up. they don't spin webs, they hide out in shoes, drawers etc ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil OKeefe Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 I can't tell if it's a brown recluse or a wolf spider. I'd look both of those up and see which one the markings match. A wolf spider will kill pests and is generally harmless, while a brown recluse is venomous and dangerous. https://medium.com/@palashdas7/wolf-spider-vs-brown-recluse-10-key-differences-c1ae79113ec8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrairieDog Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 What region are you in? I think it looks like a nice healthy, benign grass spider. I could be maybe a wolf. Hard to tell from the photo. It’s lost, so relocating it outside would be a kindness whatever it is. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karloff Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 heres a Brown Recluse. don't think its this ... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karloff Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 17 minutes ago, Phil OKeefe said: I can't tell if it's a brown recluse or a wolf spider. I'd look both of those up and see which one the markings match. A wolf spider will kill pests and is generally harmless, while a brown recluse is venomous and dangerous. https://medium.com/@palashdas7/wolf-spider-vs-brown-recluse-10-key-differences-c1ae79113ec8 Gearbasher, I think Phil is right ... check out the link he shared. i'm leaning towards the Wolf spider 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karloff Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 either way I would have flattened it immediately 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karloff Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 1 hour ago, Karloff said: looks like a Brown Recluse. they can mess you up. they don't spin webs, they hide out in shoes, drawers etc ... I was wrong, apparently they do spin webs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merciful-evans Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 18 minutes ago, Karloff said: either way I would have flattened it immediately If I find them in the house they don't last long. I mostly vacuum them up. If they stay outside they're safe. What about the ones in car door mirrors? It seems to be a preferred habitat as they are in every car I see. Must be a new subspecies by now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrairieDog Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 (edited) Just saying for you squishers/vacuumers if you have spiders in your house, there is a good chance they are there trying to be good neighbors eating things that are worse to be sharing space with, like silverfish, mosquitoes, and flies. They are really important in keeping other pests down. They are also fairly intelligent little critters. There was an article during the pandemic about folks making pets out of the little window jumping spiders. Folks were teaching them to do tricks and come when called. You can just catch and release ‘em outside if you really can’t stand ‘em. Except for the recluses/widows, (who just should be relocated carefully) they aren’t going to hurt you, and just go out wondering, “what the hell was that for?” when the shoe comes down. Edited May 15 by PrairieDog 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveFord Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 A few weeks ago I woke up with a monster bite on my leg, oozing weird crap. Stripped the room, threw everything in the washing machine, swabbed the deck, got 2 Pest Strips, shot the peirmiter of the room with insect killer, shut the windows and removed the food source (me). Small spiders I don't care about. Big ones, they come indoors, they get the Boris The Spider treatment. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil OKeefe Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 1 hour ago, SteveFord said: Small spiders I don't care about. Big ones, they come indoors, they get the Boris The Spider treatment. Nice Who reference! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gearbasher Posted May 15 Author Share Posted May 15 (edited) I don't think it's a brown recluse. I'm leaning towards one of the House Spider ( Tegenaria) varieties. They are rare in my area (Brooklyn NY), but have been seen. Anyhow, it was just hanging out and when I took the pic, it ran under my refrigerator. I'm just hoping it can take on the black ground beetles I get in my basement. I hate those things. If I see it again, I'll catch and release. Edited May 15 by gearbasher 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gearbasher Posted May 15 Author Share Posted May 15 Well, it came out again. I got another pic from a different angle. I caught it and set it free. I really would like to know what it is. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheepdog1969 Posted May 16 Share Posted May 16 (edited) So, I am not a big fan of insects. Anything with an exoskeleton freaks me out. BUT, anything that eats insects to survive is OK with me. Spiders are apparently Arachnids, not insects. ("The enemy of my enemy is my friend". -Bevis and/or Butt Head, I think) I had a HUGE black widow who did my "dirty work" in my basement for years. After we moved in, my ex and I noticed some fast moving millipedes scurrying about, from time to time, Every time I stomped on one, (without shoes), or used my hand to smash them, the darn things stung me (for lack of a better word). I defiantly did not want my infant to have to deal with that. I obviously sprayed my home with bug spray, but when I watched that black widow seriously F-up one of those millipedes in the basement one day, I knew she was my buddy. She got to know me, and I got to know her. We had an understanding. One evening, I found her wandering across my living room floor, and I wasn't OK with that. (I had a two year old daughter at the time, and I did not want her to get bitten.) So, I let the black widow climb onto my hand, of her own free will, after carefully taking time to position myself near her. She did not "bite" me, nor did she seem agitated whilst in my hand. I then carried her back downstairs to where we first met. That was the last time she ever ventured beyond her downstairs domain. Holy crap did she get huge over the years! (I assumed that meant she was eating well and doing her pest control job.) I am not down with just and spider, and if one decides to bite me, then goo it becomes. But, If they want to pay rent as my hired bug killer, I can work with that. Regarding the Brown Recluse; My God father's son in law is a Special Agent for the Department of The Treasury, United States Secret Service. You have no idea of what you go through when a close, life long, personal friend's husband is chosen to become a member of "POTUS'" personal protection detail. It is a bit unnerving when a Fed in a cheap suit unexpectedly shows up at your door and asks you to voluntarily give up your 4th amendment protections AND relate every single detail you know about your God Father's daughters husband, with no warning! If he wasn't such an awesome individual, none of us who were put under a microscope because of his assignment would have tolerated it. So, in Crawford Texas, he sat down own a hay bale in one of the barns on President Bush's property. Within seconds, he felt a stinging bite on his butt. It only took minutes before he began to feel disorientated. Per his account of the event, it was at President Bush (GWB, or 43 as we call him), that demanded my friend's Secret Service supervisors transport him to the critical care facility nearby, that was on call for Presidential medical issues, for a possible Brown Recluse bite. (The Bush family ranch was well known to the Bush family for Brown Recluse spiders). The Brown Recluse spider injects a necrotizing venom that literally dissolves biological tissue, similar to how MERSA and/or some snake venom effects human tissue. My friend spent weeks in the ICU, after multiple surgeries to remove necrotic tissue from his Gluteus Maximus, (his butt), before he was released from the hospital. It was over a month before he was cleared for active duty to as personal protection for POTUS. Both 43 and his wife Laura, as well as 41 and Barbra, took time to visit my friend in the hospital as he recovered in Texas. A tiny little spider bite on a full on bad-a$$es butt nearly killed him. As an even more humiliating side note to this tough guy's spider bite story; His brother in law is one of the top trauma surgeons in the US, and had been working with the DOD to provide better ways to treat battlefield gunshot wounds, (based on real world, urban gang shooting victim surgeries). While at a DOD medical conference, a fellow surgeon quipped about a Secret Service Agent he had treated in Texas due to a nasty Brown Recluse bite on the Agent's posterior, joking about how spider bites could be as lethal as gunshot wounds. The surgeon who mentioned the spider bite story had no idea that the doctor he was telling this to was the agent's brother-in-law. He simply wanted to tell a funny story to another "cleared" doc that he was unable to tell to anyone else. Imagine his surprise when the doc he told the story to stated that, "He knew all about it, because the agent is my brother in law.". Those of us in the "know" had one more funny anecdote to ride him about, regarding his "infamous" butt bite. All kidding aside, my friend lost a 4x4 inch wide by nearly 4" deep section of the largest muscle in his body, from a tiny spider bite which nearly killed him. And, this was a young man, in peak physical condition, who had passed every stringent requirement necessary for an individual assigned to protect the most powerful person on the planet. Sure, I had a spider pet. Sure, some here feel like I do, and see spiders as useful hunters. But, Son, if you even question if that spider is a Brown Recluse or not, I seriously recommend you squish that b!tch with malice of forethought, or risk death! Edited May 16 by Sheepdog1969 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrairieDog Posted May 16 Share Posted May 16 All spiders eat insects, and are vital for bug control. just saying, even the dangerous ones, they all still serve a purpose, so trapping gently under a cup with a card underneath and a ferry ride outside away from the house I don’t think is unreasonable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheepdog1969 Posted May 16 Share Posted May 16 I agree, but if it may even appear to be a Brown Recluse, WATCH YOUR A$$. You seriously do not want to suffer the necrotizing bite, even in kindness, of this critter! Every creature on this planet has it's purpose. Yet, there are a few that have risks beyond rewards when respectful individuals attempt to coexist with them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil OKeefe Posted May 16 Share Posted May 16 A bass player I did a couple of records with was bitten by a brown recluse, and lost a few inches of his calf muscle because of it. He ended up with a rather nasty and deep scar once it was all healed. I worry more about them (and the related desert recluse, which is what we have here in California) than I do the black widows. I usually leave black widows alone if they're outside, but I had one literally come down from the ceiling and land on my neck a few years ago. I have no idea how it got inside, or what it was doing on the ceiling, but that's where it came from, and when I felt something on my neck, I brushed it away, only to find it was a black widow. That one creeped me out a bit, and thus it got the Boris the Spider treatment. I worry about scorpions a bit, too. After years and years of shaking out my boots, only to find nothing in them, I almost blew it off early one morning while out in the boonies, only to have one fall out of it when I did. I have never been tempted to blow it off ever since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrairieDog Posted May 16 Share Posted May 16 (edited) When I was in kindergarten, we were visiting the rellies in the TX hill country. My g-g-uncle showed me all sorts of exotic critters including scorpions, carefully told to stay away from those. We were staying in the screen bunkhouse, and a couple nights in I was suddenly bedridden, delirious with fever, and going in and out of consciousness. Nobody knew what was going on, trying to decide if it was just a passing kid bug or if I needed a doctor, when my older brother spotted a black widow perched in the rafter right over my bed. I guess they trundled me to town. I don’t remember any of it, but apparently I have lived to tell the tale. Edited May 16 by PrairieDog 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveFord Posted May 16 Share Posted May 16 Back when I was a teenager, beer can collections were a big thing. I'm somewhere in NE PA on a forced camping trip with my parents (ugh!) so I go for a walk to smoke a joint and look for unusual beer cans. I'm pretty buzzed and I see this spider on the side of the road, building a web. I must have smoked maybe another joint or two watching it go, it was just amazing. I get back home and look up to see what kind of a spider it was, it was a female Black Widow! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparquelito Posted May 17 Share Posted May 17 11 hours ago, SteveFord said: Back when I was a teenager, beer can collections were a big thing. I'm somewhere in NE PA on a forced camping trip with my parents (ugh!) so I go for a walk to smoke a joint and look for unusual beer cans. I'm pretty buzzed and I see this spider on the side of the road, building a web. I must have smoked maybe another joint or two watching it go, it was just amazing. I get back home and look up to see what kind of a spider it was, it was a female Black Widow! When I was in flight school, I finished the Instrument phase a few days early, and I had an extra day off. I went out to my mom's house with my brother, and we endeavored to remove an old tin shed and years of accumulated motorcycle parts, along with a fair amount of leftover plywood. We had borrowed a friends truck and trailer, so it only took a few trips back and forth to the County land fill to get the job done. As we unloaded the last of the wood, I noticed that there had been quite a few spider nests on the wood, and no small number of nasty, black, female Black Widows. "Boy oh boy," I exclaimed, "I'm sure glad we didn't get ourselves bit by one of those buggers!" Yeah, well, I must've gotten bitten, and didn't know it. After a day or two, I noticed my arm was feeling warm and uncomfortable. We were out at the student company on Monday, waiting for an Army bus to take up out to the flight line for night flights It was the Night/Night Vision Goggle phase of training that we were in. Went to the latrine and peeled back my nomex sleeve. Sure enough, I had developed a painful welt underneath my right forearm. It was quite swollen after a few days, and painfully red, with red lines sort of creeping up and down my arm. I also had a bit of a low grade fever. The company First Sergeant walked in on me, and asked me what the hell was going on. I told him, "I'm pretty sure I got bitten by a black widow spider last Friday." I showed him my arm. "Yikes. Okay. Stay right here," he ordered. Man. I was sunk. The ISG was going to go get the paperwork to send me to the Flight Surgeon, and I was going to be medically grounded for awhile. I would most definitely get set-back to another class, and graduate weeks later than planned. So, who returns but my crafty and helpful Training Company 1SG, and he was carrying a first aid kit and a bottle of peroxide. "Okay, Candidate Sparkman," he said. "Grip the sink right here with your hand, and turn that way, away from me." He pulled a large Buck knife out of the leather sheath on his belt, and turned on the tap water, scalding hot. He ran the knife under the hot water for a half and minute, popped a flame on his Zippo lighter, and further sterilized the knife blade. He rinsed it off again, and wiped the knife down with a paper towel. Once he was happy with his surgical implement, he commanded, "Hold still. This might hurt." Such a great guy! To avoid me reporting to the Flight Surgeon and possibly getting grounded, the man did some field-expedient latrine sink-side surgery on my arm it with a Buck knife! He worked, I squirmed and grimaced, and then finally, he managed to squeeze out a big mass of corruption. It was disgusting. He rinsed the blood and offal down the drain, irrigated the wound with hydrogen peroxide, rinsed everything off, slathered the open wound with antibacterial salve, and wrapped my arm with gauze and surgical tape. "Okay sport," he said, "Keep your flight suit sleeve rolled down, and don't tell the flight line instructors about it. You should heal up in a few days." Sure enough, I healed up fine, and lost no training days because of the Black Widow bite. Forty six years later, that scarred portion of my forearm is utterly devoid of sensation. You could put a cigarette out on that spot, and I wouldn't feel it. Okay, I'm gonna shut up now. 😔 2 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrairieDog Posted May 17 Share Posted May 17 3 minutes ago, sparquelito said: When I was in flight school, I finished the Instrument phase a few days early, and I had an extra day off. I went out to my mom's house with my brother, and we endeavored to remove an old tin shed and years of accumulated motorcycle parts, along with a fair amount of leftover plywood. We had borrowed a friends truck and trailer, so it only took a few trips back and forth to the County land fill to get the job done. As we unloaded the last of the wood, I noticed that there had been quite a few spider nests on the wood, and no small number of nasty, black, female Black Widows. "Boy oh boy," I exclaimed, "I'm sure glad we didn't get ourselves bit by one of those buggers!" Yeah, well, I must've gotten bitten, and didn't know it. After a day or two, I noticed my arm was feeling warm and uncomfortable. We were out at the student company on Monday, waiting for an Army bus to take up out to the flight line for night flights It was the Night/Night Vision Goggle phase of training that we were in. Went to the latrine and peeled back my nomex sleeve. Sure enough, I had developed a painful welt underneath my right forearm. It was quite swollen after a few days, and painfully red, with red lines sort of creeping up and down my arm. I also had a bit of a low grade fever. The company First Sergeant walked in on me, and asked me what the hell was going on. I told him, "I'm pretty sure I got bitten by a black widow spider last Friday." I showed him my arm. "Yikes. Okay. Stay right here," he ordered. Man. I was sunk. The ISG was going to go get the paperwork to send me to the Flight Surgeon, and I was going to be medically grounded for awhile. I would most definitely get set-back to another class, and graduate weeks later than planned. So, who returns but my crafty and helpful Training Company 1SG, and he was carrying a first aid kit and a bottle of peroxide. "Okay, Candidate Sparkman," he said. "Grip the sink right here with your hand, and turn that way, away from me." He pulled a large Buck knife out of the leather sheath on his belt, and turned on the tap water, scalding hot. He ran the knife under the hot water for a half and minute, popped a flame on his Zippo lighter, and further sterilized the knife blade. He rinsed it off again, and wiped the knife down with a paper towel. Once he was happy with his surgical implement, he commanded, "Hold still. This might hurt." Such a great guy! To avoid me reporting to the Flight Surgeon and possibly getting grounded, the man did some field-expedient latrine sink-side surgery on my arm it with a Buck knife! He worked, I squirmed and grimaced, and then finally, he managed to squeeze out a big mass of corruption. It was disgusting. He rinsed the blood and offal down the drain, irrigated the wound with hydrogen peroxide, rinsed everything off, slathered the open wound with antibacterial salve, and wrapped my arm with gauze and surgical tape. "Okay sport," he said, "Keep your flight suit sleeve rolled down, and don't tell the flight line instructors about it. You should heal up in a few days." Sure enough, I healed up fine, and lost no training days because of the Black Widow bite. Forty six years later, that scarred portion of my forearm is utterly devoid of sensation. You could put a cigarette out on that spot, and I wouldn't feel it. Okay, I'm gonna shut up now. 😔 Ummm, congrats on graduating on time? 😫 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparquelito Posted May 17 Share Posted May 17 10 hours ago, PrairieDog said: Ummm, congrats on graduating on time? 😫 Thanks. It was quite an achievement, in the end. Considering that I had been put up for elimination in a much earlier phase of (pre-flight professional development) training, and even though reinstated, was set-back eight and a half weeks. I was grateful to be able to graduate with some really great classmates. Two of whom are fast friends to this day. 🙂 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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