USA: a nation of arachnophobes?

[Dung_Beetle]

@Inigo_Montoya

“comparable in size to a wagonne wheele”

[Darren_Garrison]

@Johnny_L.A

(She does love jumping spiders.)

That doesn’t sound very challenging.

[Riemann]

@Velocity

Drives me crazy when people kill spiders for no reason other than that “they scare me.” These are the same people who, centuries ago, would have probably wanted animals like wolves and coyotes exterminated. Even more hypocritically, many of these spider-killers are people who claim to love animals. Guess what, spiders are in Kingdom Animalia.

I fully endorse this, except I think the test is more one of whether we can find a way to
peacefully coexist than membership of Animalia. I’m never going to have any ethical qualms about killing mosquitoes, even where there’s no malaria, when their evolutionary niche is to drink my blood.

[Miss_Mapp]

@Baron_Greenback

• Oddly, Horace used to live in my mum and dad’s house before I moved out all those decades ago I wonder how many generations of Horace there have been in my life? I also wonder if spiders establish dominance, because there only ever seems to be one big one at a time in my bit.

As I recall from one traumatic experience from my youth, the big one has probably eaten the smaller ones. :eek:

[Jackmannii]

We had impressive specimens when I lived in Texas. I admired a huge one that spun a web near our back door. I named her “Queenie” and tossed her juicy bugs once in awhile.

I will occasionally trap and release ones I find scuttling about in the house. What’s really annoying is when I bring a potted plant in for the winter and a clutch of spider eggs hatch, resulting in a plague of mini-spiders spinning their webs, which I have to keep eradicating.

[Turpentine]

@Two_Many_Cats

I like spiders. I would likely squash them inside my apartment, but I have on more than one occasion scooped them up and set them free outside.

I see the whole stereotype of the woman running squealing to the man to kill the spider she just saw is alive and well. Nice misogyny there, despite the recent gains through politics and #MeToo.

This is perfectly strong sauce. I’ve never killed a spider in my life, not on purpose at least. And my husband is afraid of spiders. If there’s one in the house making him uncomfortable, it’s my job to gently relocate the little gal. And I’m pretty damn sick of the stereotype of squealing women who are horrified by spiders or anything remotely creep-crawly.

[snowthx]

I am in the catch-and-release-outside camp, when it comes to spiders, and pretty much anything else (including a mouse, once). I draw the line with mosquitoes and wasps - entering my domain and getting seen is usually a death sentence.

I am not afraid of spiders at all. My wife, however, thinks every single one is a tarantula, waiting to bite her and suck her blood (do spiders even do that?). Anyway, yes, it seems there are people who have an irrational fear of spiders and kill them at every turn, and I try to balance that out a tiny bit by being catch-and-release.

While I have a great appreciation for bees, and to some extent, wasps (pretty much any stinging insect), I have an irrational fear there. Last week there was a clip going around about someone who captured the “world’s largest bee”, and I thought I was getting lightheaded seeing it. What is that: Apidophobia? “Bees. Why’d it have to be bees?”

[somepumpkin]

@Jackmannii

We had impressive specimens when I lived in Texas. I admired a huge one that spun a web near our back door. I named her “Queenie” and tossed her juicy bugs once in awhile.

Those poor bug… think of the bugs, man!

@Riemann

Mantras are the worst, I beat them with a stick and then squash them with my shoe.

Ok… i lol’ed

[blondebear]

Hmmm…I’d like t to point out that a British citizen (in a band that wrapped itself in the Union Jack,no less) a wrote Boris the Spider, which included these lyrics:

There he is wrapped in a ball
Doesn’t seem to move at all
Perhaps he’s dead, I’ll just make sure
Pick this book up off the floor

He’s come to a sticky end
Don’t think he will ever mend
Never more will he crawl 'round
He’s embedded in the ground

In addition, the crowd cheering this particular instance of arachnophobic assault was Canadian: The Who, Toronto 1982

[scr4]

@Sangahyando

I realise that the US has some varieties of spider which are venomous; but if I’m right: these species are in a minority and found only in some parts of the country – the majority of North American spiders are harmless.

Mostly true, but there are 2 types of spiders that can be harmful to humans and are pretty widespread in the US.

The brown recluse is the more annoying one - they live throughout the South, they are often found indoors, and at first glance they don’t look very distinctive. So every time I find a brown spider in the house I have to wonder if it’s a brown recluse. Though I don’t think I’ve seen one so far - I think all the brown spiders in our house are harmless wolf spiders.

The other is the black widow, and they are in every part of the mainland US. And they are very common - I see them all the time in our yard. But they look distinctive and usually don’t come indoors.

[begbert2]

I generally don’t bother the spiders in my apartment; I choose to assume that they’re paying the rent by keeping the other bugs under control. However when one decides to annoy me (by crawling around on my TV screen, for example), I’ll do my best to guide it into walking onto a long strip of toilet paper (without touching me; eugh), which I then hastily carry by its ends, drop into a toilet, and flush. I don’t know if it kills the spider and don’t care; they violated the unspoken rental agreement and have to go.

[Kimstu]

@blondebear

Hmmm…I’d like t to point out that a British citizen (in a band that wrapped itself in the Union Jack,no less) a wrote Boris the Spider, which included these lyrics:

The immortal British revue duo of Flanders & Swann weighed in on this subject too, and not in the spider’s favor. Admittedly, that was mid-20th-century, so perhaps the OP’s point is just that spider acceptance as a social phenomenon has progressed somewhat farther on the right than on the left side of the pond in recent decades?

@Velocity

Drives me crazy when people kill spiders for no reason other than that “they scare me.”

To be fair, there appears to be evidence that specific animal phobias, particularly about snakes and spiders, are very strong and unpleasant psychological phenomena for some people, although perhaps not identifiable evolutionary survivals as sometimes argued. (Warning for arachnophobes: big-ass tarantula picture in that link.)

I don’t support reflexive killing of spiders, as I said, but then I don’t know what it feels like to be arachnophobic. I advocate for arachnophobes adopting a policy of fleeing and screaming for help, so that we non-arachnophobes can go through the catch-and-release procedure out of their sight.

[Kimstu]

@begbert2

However when one decides to annoy me (by crawling around on my TV screen, for example), I’ll do my best to guide it into walking onto a long strip of toilet paper (without touching me; eugh), which I then hastily carry by its ends, drop into a toilet, and flush. I don’t know if it kills the spider and don’t care

It probably does, albeit in a rather cruelly prolonged process:

What happens to a spider after it traverses the U-bend? For an answer, I sought the expertise of Ohio State’s Dr. Jerome Rovner, a member of the American Arachnological Society.

“Flushed spiders will drown if they end up submerged in the sewer,” he told me in an email. “However, the drowning process for a spider can take an hour or more, as they have an extremely low metabolic rate and thus a very low rate of oxygen consumption.”

[mixdenny]

@Riemann

Clearly the country needs far more etymologists, to help the people who are interested in insects to find one of the thousands of jobs open to them.

xkcd: Wrong Superhero

Sigh. Damn spell checker suggestions.

Dennis

[Inigo_Montoya]

@snowthx

I am in the catch-and-release-outside camp, when it comes to spiders, and pretty much anything else (including a mouse, once). I draw the line with mosquitoes and wasps - entering my domain and getting seen is usually a death sentence.

Spiders really do freak me out. So much so that I can’t help but recognize that fact as ridiculous and I get myself under control. That takes at least 30 seconds, so if one is on me, it’s as good dead. If I see one in the house and it’s not near where I intend to end up in the next 5 minutes I can just pretend it’s not there. If it seems to want to share a room with me, there’s going to be trouble. Spiders can bite through books, and even ceramic plates (they frequently cannot even pierce human skin) so relocation isn’t on the table.

Black and yellow buzzy fliers? The are admired and respected, and are coaxed back outside. If they are buzzing about outside, I ignore them, maybe swat them away if they’re getting fresh. Weird, right? I loathe the ones that won’t harm me, and I have no problem with the sting-y ones.

[Doctor_Jackson]

@scr4

The other is the black widow, and they are in every part of the mainland US. And they are very common - I see them all the time in our yard. But they look distinctive and usually don’t come indoors.

Oh, they definitely come indoors. Granted, they prefer darker, quieter indoor locations like garages, basements and crawlspaces. From here:

Habitat
Outdoors, black widow spiders commonly live in protected areas like under stones and in firewood piles. They are often found in barns, outhouses and sheds. Indoors, black widows prefer cluttered areas of garages, basements and crawl spaces.

I was in my crawl space a few weeks ago checking the furnace filter when my son, who was kneeling at the door, said “Dad! Don’t move!”. I froze and said “What is it?”. He answered “Black Widow right behind your head”. I moved slightly forward and turned around to see the largest Black Widow spider I have ever seen, and I see them often. This one was about the size of a US 50 cent coin, the red hourglass on it’s belly proudly displayed. I just went around the web and let it be.

Now, if it had been a snake one of us would have been dead and the other desperately fleeing the scene. Not sure whom would be which…

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Darren_Garrison

You may want to read this and this before you bring on the smug.

Nice finds! I was tempted to question the OP’s premise that Brits are all totally cool with spiders, but you actually found a cite.

for around 45 per cent of Brits the idea of sharing kitchen space with an arachnid is the stuff of nightmares. Fear of spiders is Britain’s number one phobia, with a third of sufferers saying it affects their day to day life.

@blondebear

Hmmm…I’d like t to point out that a British citizen (in a band that wrapped itself in the Union Jack,no less) a wrote Boris the Spider

…while it was an American who wrote Charlotte’s Web.

[Aspenglow]

@Inigo_Montoya

And people accuse us Yanks of ignoring history. Back when we were still just struggling colonies, people weren’t coming here fleeing mundane European crackpottery like religious persecution. We were fleeing a land positively infested with spiders thanks to the likes of you. As a result, our culture is noted for an unusual concentration of arachnophobia. It is one of our strongest bonds as a nation. Boston Tea party? Not an act of insurrection, a dock worker spotted a Parasteatoda tepidariorum “comparable in size to a wagonne wheele” creeping across his hand. He panicked and dropped his box o tea and it tumbled into the bay. “Spyyyderr” he yelped and the rest of the dockworkers likewise dropped their loads. The Chicago Fire of 1871 and Seattle fire of 1889? Workers [del]frightened[/del] attacked by Phidippus audax and Tegenaria agrestis, respectively. There is ongoing debate about what really happened on 9/11.

Good god, you’re funny.

[begbert2]

@Kimstu

It probably does, albeit in a rather cruelly prolonged process:

And yet I still don’t care. You bother me even slightly, you get what’s coming to you.

[Gatopescado]

Sorry, Man. They all must DIE!

@Sangahyando

There is possibly the factor that effectively, no British spider is capable of physically harming a human.

'Round my neck of the woods, they will flat-out Fuck You Up. And this ain’t even Australia! Let’s see you call them out.

And then there is this: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/05/03/jeff-hanneman-slayer-dead-dies-spider_n_3208929.html

'Nuff said.