# Spiders: Evil on 8 legs or Tortured souls living in perpetual terror? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 31, 2004, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiders-evil-on-8-legs-or-tortured-souls-living-in-perpetual-terror/257703 "2004-07-31T06:24:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiders-evil-on-8-legs-or-tortured-souls-living-in-perpetual-terror/257703/41 "2004-08-02T04:45:16Z")
> [@zoogirl](#): > > Oh, **JThunder** , I had a look at Bob today. She’s actually got kind of goldish guard hairs and her knees are striped. (Yeah, Bob’s a girl. Don’t blame me - the boss named her!) Ooh… It might be a _Grammastola aureostriaum_ (Chaco golden knee) then. If so, those suckers get to be HUGE, especially the females (about a 9" legspan, as I recall). What’s more, they’re incredibly sweet and docile. I love to let little children pose with my monster _G. aureostriatum_, as I know that she’s absolutely gentle and easy to handle. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiders-evil-on-8-legs-or-tortured-souls-living-in-perpetual-terror/257703/42 "2004-08-02T04:49:37Z")
> [@zoogirl](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > BTW: aren’t the brown recluse and the black widow spider the only two in North America that are capable of causing any misery to a person? Or am I wrong? > > Sorry, but you’re wrong. We’ve got a charming little visitor called the Hobo which has taken up permanant residant status. It’s freakin’ big, brown and quite nasty. The things are even hardy enough to survive up here. Matter of fact, we’ve had two brought in to the zoo in the last couple of years. Additionally, even the North American tarantulas can cause misery to a person. That’s mostly due to the amount of mechanical damage that their fangs can cause though, since their venom is fairly mild. In other words, they’ll leave a big and painful bite, but unless you have a severe allergic reaction to their venom, they shouldn’t cause you much trouble. Thankfully, the vast majority of them are quite docile–the only exception being _Aphonopelma moderatum_, as I mentioned earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiders-evil-on-8-legs-or-tortured-souls-living-in-perpetual-terror/257703/43 "2004-08-02T05:21:08Z")
Who’s-Yo-Daddy-Longlegs has trekked upstairs. I found him in the bathroom tonight. Either that or we’ve got TWO that size roaming the house. That does tend to give me, uh, a bit of pause. \ ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiders-evil-on-8-legs-or-tortured-souls-living-in-perpetual-terror/257703/44 "2004-08-02T05:42:52Z")
I used to be deathly afraid of spiders (as well as dogs, bugs, needles and surgery). I eventually realized that, in most cases, none of those five things were out to hurt me. I got over my fear of spiders and dogs and made pretty good progress with the other three, and you know what I’ve realized? Spiders are not only beneficial for home and environment, but are also pretty cute. (That orb weaver thing looks pretty funky, though.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiders-evil-on-8-legs-or-tortured-souls-living-in-perpetual-terror/257703/45 "2004-08-02T06:36:44Z")
My XBF actually kept a wolf spider as a pet. It had spun its funnel web in the kitchen sink. I said, “eeew”, he said “kewl”. It took me a couple of days to persuade him to remove it so I could, you know, do the dishes? Eventually Spider Friend was given a home in a disused aquarium, where he lived for several months. I once had a spider try to catch me. OK, twice. I came out of my apartment to go go grocery shopping and found that a smallish rendition of one of the larger, and nastier, orb-weavers native to the area had strung its net between the railings of my front steps. I grabbed a stick and tore down the web. I came home with my groceries a while later and the sucker had rebuilt its web. This thing was determined it was going to stock its larder with me. I tore the web down again and it gave up after that. A few years later, I saw a _Far Side_ comic in which two spiders had built a web across the bottom of a playground slide, and one was saying to the other, “If we pull this off, we’ll eat like kings!!!” Obviously, I’m not the only person to ever have this experience. ---
**Author:** ![WCOT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e5b9ba/32.png) [@WCOT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WCOT)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiders-evil-on-8-legs-or-tortured-souls-living-in-perpetual-terror/257703/46 "2004-08-02T06:52:12Z")
Spiders are pretty creepy but when you live in an area where your as likely to see one of these [monsters](http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Images/Display/2003-07-31_16-51-04.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Pictures/2003-07-31_16-51-04.aspx&h=500&w=333&sz=59&tbnid=Zx9MZJ7AtpoJ:&tbnh=126&tbnw=84&start=20&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddobsonfly%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG) ,which are for the most part pretty harmless, a few arachnids dont bother you as much. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spiders-evil-on-8-legs-or-tortured-souls-living-in-perpetual-terror/257703.md?page=2)