The Big Spider thread got me to thinking: Which is worse, big spiders or big snakes?
I could not sit in a house that had tanks with half a dozen big spiders. Snakes, on the other hand, are very cool. I’ve had many as pets over the years.
Would you be so uneasy with either of these choices that you couldn’t spend time in someone’s home if they had these? Discuss.
Snakes. Definitely snakes. I hate hate HATE HATE HATE snakes.
I’m severely ophidiophobic. I can’t even stand to think about snakes for more than a minute, or I’ll start freaking out.
I love snakes! I had a Boa Constrictor around my neck once. I was in Thailand, and this guy was charging a few baht to get your photo taken with a big snake.
Spiders, on the other hand, I’m uneasy with. Give me a snake any day.
I’d much rather be around snakes if they were freely roaming around. Assuming they’d be in tanks, however, I would be fine either way. They’re both pretty fascinating to watch when they’re active, but the thought of huge spiders waiting under my couch or under the covers of my bed just creeps me out more than if it were snakes. Especially if they have long hairy legs.
Spiders of any sort freak me out, but I’ll freely play with snakes, so, gotta go with the snakes.
To get some idea of what “big spiders” really means, lemme ask: have any of y’all ever seen, in real life, a “Goliath Bird-Eating Spider”? They had one by the cash register at a local pet store once…UGH! Those things have a legspan that can cover a dinner plate. The thing’s abdomen was somewhere between the size of a plum and pear. HUGE. I don’t feel safe in the same city as that thing.
Big spiders – even the thought of them is creepy. Little spiders are o.k., they catch mosquitoes and other nasties and can be fun to watch.
NEITHER.
It’s really sad that spiders and snakes seem to have hired the wrong PR firm. Think of what spiders eat. Flies, mosquitoes and other winged nasties. Think of what snakes eat. Mice, rats and all sorts of other vermin.
Snakes and spiders are some of our best friends and yet they get treated like a whore in church.
It’s wrong, I tell you. Quite wrong.
No spiders! NOnoNOnoNO!
Dung Beetle, I have to wonder if there wasn’t a thread like this with YOUR name in the title at one time or another. You’re a freaky lookin’ little dude, I tell ya. Pushin’ that big ol’ turd around like that.
Spiders are definitely much much worse. I’ve always been ok with little spiders, or hairless spiders. My limit has always been if you can see their hair, or you can see their eyes. That’s too much. I can’t even stand to look at pictures of them. Creepy.
Snakes, on the other hand, have always fascinated me. I was bitten by one once too, but it was just a garter snake. I will play with non-poisonous snakes, they’re cool.
If you want to go beyond, the only things worse than hairy spiders are cockroaches, and scorpions. Those are some bad-ass looking MF’s.
Snakes don’t bother me, as long as they arre not the fanged variety. I owned a very sedate corn snake from 1991 until just last month (his 30 gallon tank was sitting on one of the dressers, and we needed the space).
Spiders, on the other hand, completely freak me out. Not only do they look incredibly alien and disgusting (to me, at least), but tarantulas can jump 10+ feet and have poisonous fangs. Sorry, but they really give me the creeps.
Barry
Ace 22 said, "If you want to go beyond, the only things worse than hairy spiders are cockroaches, and scorpions. "
Christ! I’d eat a cockroach before I’d sit in a room with a giant fucking spider. I think I could even handle a scorpion better, but the jury’s still out on that.
I don’t like spiders or snakes.
But that ain’t what it takes to love me.
… Like I wanna be loved by you…
There are a lot of myths about tarantulas, and I think this is one of them.
Tarantulas also have the totally cool and unique ability to flick semi-toxic hairs from their underbelly like little darts.
Snakes totally creep me out. Spiders I don’t mind at all.
I think they’re both pretty cool.
But, then again, I’m kind of weird.
I’d go for spiders over snakes. Lower maintenance, no need to feed the spiders live or re-warmed mammals.
I’m with Zenster’s first post on this one. I like 'em both. If I had to choose a favorite, I’d go with snakes. I am however, afraid of earwigs, millers, and kelp.
I knew I liked you! 
I think the fact that I used to breed snakes pretty much covers that side of the equation. I have mixed feelings about spiders. I find small ones fascinating, and I know they’re beneficial in their natural ecosystem. I once watched one go through it’s entire life life cycle, in a web she had spun in my bathroom. (I’m normally neater than that, but it was kind of an experiment in my own psychology.)
But, as they get larger they get less interesting, and more creepy, to me. Tarantula’s are pretty much at my limit. I had a friend who had a Bird Eating spider; I spent the entire time I was in the same room with it, with my eyes fixed firmly on it’s cage. A whole room of them would definitely creep me out.