I just stepped outside for a smoke. There was a spider crawling across my patio. I went into my expected hysterical mode and managed to kill it eventually (I’m a guy and maybe could kick your ass; got something to say?).
I came in and checked the web for Akron weather, and it has the current temp as 36F and 25F wind chill. Two questions: How do the evil bastards survive, being cold-blooded? And why do they come out in conditions like this? Hunger? I thought they layed their eggs and died, but IANAnE. Which begs another question: Do entomologists study arachnids? I’m sure I could Google that, but hell, I’m already on a board on which users enjoy giving answers, so I’m asking you.
Spiders survive a huge range of conditions very well. That is why they are found virtually everywhere in the world except antarctica. Some live well over 20 years! Spiders are very good at living in places where they can escape extremes of temperature using silk or living in burrows. They also have metabolisms which use almost no energy when they are still. And they can stay very still for very long periods of time.
One major reason for roaming is when males are trying to find females for the usual reason males like to find females. Or to find food. In this weather, it is possible that the spider has been disturbed and forced to move.
Some lay and die, but that’s far from all of them. Most males survive mating, despite the common belief that they are all eaten by the female. Spiders are divided into two main groups - the ‘primitives’ which includes trapdoors, tarantulas. They can live over 20 years and may have young every year from maturity. The rest - almost every spider you know - are ‘moderns’. Most of them only live a year or two. Males often only a month or two.
Entomologists study insects. Arachnologists study arachnids - spiders, scorpions and mites and a few other odds and ends.
Now let’s get to the going hysterical and killing it! Warning - I am on a crusade to convert the entire world to arachnophilia. I was once an arachnophobe - it was wrecking my life. I started studying the little beasts and overdid the cure. I am now obsessed by them. They are incredibly fascinating, harmless creatures. Don’t kill them. Learn to love them!
Some friends of ours are getting married in Sydney this year. I shan’t be making the trip, due to arachnophobia. Seeing a huntsman spider crawling round my bedroom would probably trigger a cardiac arrest, which would detract from my friend’s big day, and be rude.
You make an interesting point, though - Antarctica! I wonder if they could switch the wedding…
Seriously? Fear of spiders is really not a reason to miss a trip to Sydney. I don’t recall seeing a single spider when I was there. If they were getting married in the Walkabout Creek Motel or something, I could understand it, but not Sydney.
(Having said that, when I was in Melbourne there was a story in the local news of a tiger snake being found on a shelf in a bookshop :eek: )
Do you really want to go to the wedding? I am serious. I used to be bad, but now can sleep happily with a huntsman above my head. Given I live in Australia, I often get that priviledge. There is one only a few metres from me at this moment and very welcome to stay inside.
Arachnophobia is an irrational fear. It’s very common, but it can be fixed. It is possible to end up like I am now - getting a real buzz out of every spider I see.
I don’t believe in the methods which involve holding spiders, or touching them in any way. It’s not necessary, and it’s unlikely you will ever touch one unless you want to. And I can assure you, despite stories to the contrary, spiders will do everything in their power to avoid you. To them, you are a massive predator with only one intention - to eat them.
Sydney is a great city to visit. Why not reconsider?
lynne, can you tell us how you got over your fear of spiders? I did a single session of therapy, and while that helped some, I wouldn’t mind seeing a huntsman and go “Cool! There you are, my little friend” the way I do when I see a mouse somewhere.
Please, Cocky, let us know if you are serious or if you were just kidding.
Fear of spiders is not even close to being a whisper of a ghost of a good enough reason not to visit Sydney or any other part of the wonderful nation continent that is Australia.
I have been there twice, and have had the most wonderful adventures on both occasions. Any reason to visit Sydney is a great reason, and no reason is still good enough! Even if you suffer terribly from this fear, you can and should still go to Sydney and have a really great time. To imagine otherwise is really allowing lots of myths and misunderstandings to cloud your judgment and your life.
I do sympathise with arachnophobia. I suffered from it too, for many years. But I promise that there are many people with the same or even greater fear who live perfectly well in Sydney, and who never so much as encounter a single spider. It can de done!
It’s not hard to visit Sydney, have a great holiday and a great time, without even seeing a single spider of any description - particularly if you are going to be among friends and family. Please say you were just kidding!
(And just for the record… a hunstman is entirely harmless and couldn’t hurt you even if it wanted to, which it never would because you aren’t prey. To it, you are just a very large, suspicious dark shape it would like to move away from, if it felt it could do so safely without being attacked.)
Perhaps you could have made it clear you were just talking about spiders and other lower orders here. Otherwise, I fear that your rather coy turn of phrase could be interpreted as implying, in an anthropomorphic sense, that even among people, males usually seek females for just one reason. This would of course be reverse chauvinism, on a par with ‘women can’t drive very well and aren’t fit for management roles’. In other words, complete garbage.
I’m quite phobic about spiders - particularly huntsmans - but I’ve survived 31 years here regardless. Some places are worse for them than others, but try staying somewhere that doesn’t have a lot of gum trees close to the building and you should be right. And they may be the ugliest damn things on the face of the earth, but they are completely harmless.
Asking me to talk about spiders is opening a floodgate, Maastricht. I could write a book on this topic. Actually, I just did. It is in editing at the moment.
Basically the secret is to reduce the spider to an individual little creature battling to survive. They live very traumatic little lives. Those on webs or in burrows will be the same individual, so find a web or burrow and get to know the owner. I started by giving names to very very small spiders building little webs on the OTHER side of the window. I stopped cleaning webs off outside. I got to know their behaviour and find it was predictable so I started feeling more in control. Then I ventured outside and found they were hard to see because they would detect me coming and retreat. I had to sneak up.
I kept going - it all took about six months - watching spiders and giving them names. Most didn’t survive. If the birds didn’t get them, other spiders did. The day it all changed was when I first watched a garden orb weaver spin her web from start to finish. It was awesome and I was obsessed. Once you learn the signs, you will discover how to find spiders everywhere. They are very good at staying hidden.
With hunstmen, I took deep breaths and then looked at the palps - the shorter leg-like appendages in front. Usually they will have little boxing gloves on the end which means they are a male out looking for a female. By the time I had done that, and looked at the patterning on their abdomens, I had got over the instant fear reaction.
I knew I had overdone the cure when Theresa lost her battle with the birds last summer. Her photo is on my website. She was a wolf spider who lived in the pelargonium patch in my garden. I first met her when she was covered with a hundred, at least, babies on her back. Most spiders are very skittish and disappear before you get close. Of the twenty wolf spiders I am watching this year, only two will consistently stay out of their burrows and let me get close. Theresa was really good as long as I didn’t move suddenly. I got to see (and photograph) her go through two lots of babies, saw the babies climb a pelargonium to balloon off to far off fields, saw a male leaving her burrow and then the result of two attacks by birds which target spider burrows. One day the birds were there and I was too late. I stood over the empty, scooped out burrow and cried. My wolf spiders get fences now!
I got into macrophotography, initially to photograph Theresa, I had become so obsessed with her. Then I started wearing spider jewelry - a pendant and rings. Every day without fail, someone will comment on them and then start telling me their spider story. Everyone has one. I have met so many interesting people that way.
I have since worked with a lot of arachnologists in order to write the book to help others know what they are looking at. If it’s got eight legs, then I think it’s gorgeous.
Okay, this thread has a couple replies, so I can say this now. I’m going to get myself in a shit-load of trouble one of these days because I had the BIGGEST urge when I saw the OP this morning to be the first person to reply, and it would have looked like this:
I’m kidding, in that there is no way I would not go to a friends wedding because of arachnophobia. I probably can’t make it for other, more mundane reasons as it goes.
I’m not kidding about the spider-fear though; I don’t know how phobias are graded but I’d say I have a severe case - enough to make it a factor in considering a trip to Oz. Confronting a huntsman doesn’t bear thinking about.
I’d be forced to do something about arachnophobia if I lived down under. In the UK, I can get away with ignoring it as I very rarely see spiders, I dream about them more than I actually encounter them - a good indication that I am under stress is when I start having spider nightmares.
I know huntsmen are harmless, but it really has no bearing at all on arachnophobia.
I’m a pretty manly man, but I don’t mind saying that I completely freaked out when I saw a mouse scampering across the floor in our new house. It was a month ago, and I’m still a little freaked. My wife and daughters think my reaction was hilarious, and they weren’t bothered by the mouse much at all.
Of course, my wife screams hysterically at the site of a spider, and my oldest daughter freaked out when she found a lady bug in her room.
Why do people have such different reactions to small creatures, and why such strong reactions. Is this something instinctive, learned behavior, or is it conditioned?
I appreciate what you’re saying, while also recognizing you’re loony as a tune. Spiders most assuredly will gladly see you dead and suck out your soul. I’m fighting ignorance here. Spiders are the most evil creatures in the universe. <shiver>
I’m a pretty manly man, but I don’t mind saying that I completely freaked out when I saw a mouse scampering across the floor in our new house. It was a month ago, and I’m still a little freaked. My wife and daughters think my reaction was hilarious, and they weren’t bothered by the mouse much at all.
Spiders most assuredly will gladly see you dead and suck out your soul. I’m fighting ignorance here. Spiders are the most evil creatures in the universe. <shiver>