Southern USA Critters

[azskyman]

I am in love with Arizona after moving from Illinois. Back in the Midwest, wolf spiders and garden spiders of all kinds were common. I would clear the webs from the basement and window wells often, and they would be back the next day. Centipedes were common too, and overall it was not unusual to have spiders in the house at least once a week.

Since moving to Arizona we have caught scorpions at work as large as my thumb. Black widow webs are easy to spot (and pop like plastic) when you run into those. Recluse bites are experienced by some. And the sting of a small scorpion is painful (I am told).

Still, I have never yet had a large spider in the house in 8 years. No centipedes and not a single web anywhere near my house. The only scorpion I found was a dead one.

Geckos roam the yard and the outside walls of the house, but I consider that a good thing.

And the tarantula that came knocking on our breakroom door at work one day, he was docile enough to coax into a box and take a trip to a nearby wash behind the building.

The bugs that would bother me in Arizona have one good trait. You can see them from a block away.

[arkess7]

Reminds me of that story........"Charlotte's Web.......as a child....that was my favorite book! Now a days my daughter has the video........

All in all i think spiders are very beneficial for eating all those 'bothersome' bugs we all hate......flys....mosquitos.etc...

I just dont want them in my house!!!! i usually leave the webs up i see outside .....unless they are gona be in the way of someone walking into them! uggg!!!

[Skywatch_NC]

Has anyone ever made spider web art? One time I saw where a web had been framed.

Eric

[arkess7]

No but that sounds cool!

[conestogo_flood]

After doing research, I found out that Black Widows are found around here too. There was even one living on our deck this summer, since then I have not seen it. This churns my stomach just a tad.

[alicia-w]

These are golden silk spiders, aka banana spiders. They are beautiful! We have one that we move to the front of the house during big storms so she doesnt get smacked by the wind. They are quite large and their webs are very pretty too.[/url]

[Persepone]

I thought I was living in the spider capital of the US. There seems to be every type of spider here--and they all come in the house all the time!

Seriously, we also apparently have brown recluse and black widows...

But we have zillions of other types of spiders that bite! Not "poisonous" but if they bite you, you know you were bitten!

Also, we have spiders that can leap a great distance... ugh! You sort of don't expect them to do this, but they do. Ugly nasty ones.

Not much you can do about spiders, I guess. They are everywhere.