I generally feed it, or help it with its homework, because the small but dangerous animal is either one of my cats, or my daughter.
99% of all spider bites are harmless, and the harmful ones are usually non-fatal, although the brown recluse can sometimes cause muscle tissue damage as you describe and occasionally death.
I read an article a while back about a spider expert who claimed that the vast majority of reported / diagnosed “spider bites” were in fact something else. If you don’t actually see the spider bite you, it was probably something else.
Almost all venomous snakes in North America (except the coral snake, found only in the Southwest and with a very distinctive pattern of red, yellow, and black bands) are pit vipers, which means that they all have a triangular-shaped head somewhat wider than their neck. So if you find a snake in North America that has cheeks flush with its neck, and doesn’t have red, yellow, and black bands, then it’s nonvenomous. And all of the nonvenomous snakes in North America are less dangerous than a squirrel, since there’s a chance that the squirrel has rabies, but reptiles can’t carry anything that can spread to humans. Even if it is venomous, that’s a good reason to be careful, but not to panic, because even in the worst case, all of our venomous snakes have very low mortality rates (something like 5% mortality, with no treatment at all, for a rattlesnake).
So what does cause the large, irregularly-shaped welts that itch like crazy? I had a few of those growing up, and they were definitely neither mosquito bites nor flea bites (I can certainly recognize both of those).
Except for salmonella. So if you do happen to handle a snake or lizard or even frog or newt, remember to wash your hands, kids!
I have a son who goes absolutely INSANE if I so much as put a ladybug out into the cold where “It will DIE Mom!”, and yet he eats meat every day. Crimeny.
In our old house we had left the screen off of our bathroom window for some reason and a bird flew in while the door was closed. We could hear it going crazy in there before it flew out. I didn’t know what it was so I didn’t open the door till the sounds stopped, but I knew it had to have been a bird by the poop that was on the walls and door too high to have been any other kind of animal. Ugh. What a clean up job. The screen stayed on after that.
One more anecdote about NOT picking up little animals, even if not usually all that dangerous. My daughter was at a local drugstore, and there was a mouse acting really weird near the entrance, kind of running around randomly in circles. Nobody else wanted to put it out the door. She grabbed it to toss it outside and it ran up her coat :eek:. Later that night she felt really, really ill. After a day or two she was fine, but it wasn’t until she mentioned this to her doctor, whom she was seeing about something else entirely, that we made the connection. The doctor said the mouse might have been acting that way because it had ingested poison, which could have contained a neurotoxin, and my daughter could have absorbed some of that through her skin when handling the creature. Yikes.
Non-venomous snake bites:
It’s still a good idea to get a tetanus shot. That can be transmitted through a snake bite.
And, of course, we all know why you shouldn’t cuddle an armadillo. 
True, but tetanus can be transmitted through almost anything that breaks the skin.
I’d imagine our Animal Control would probably be very nice and take care of your problem; they’ve done so for anyone I know that’s called them, even for silly things. There’s a fair chance they’d laugh at you later, when they’re comparing notes, though. At least that’s what we do when we get silly requests. They might advise you on how to do it yourself next time, or tell you over the phone when you called, if it was something really small like a spider or scorpion, where the answer is pretty much “stomp it or take it outside”.
The fiddlebacks (brown recluse spiders), I just ignore. They’ve lived in almost every house I’ve had, I grew up with them in the house, no one’s ever been noticeably bitten. I do drown 'em if I find 'em in the bathtub. I calls it ‘natural selection’, same as the spiders and egg-sacs I vacuum when I move furniture. Since they’re indoors, I figure I qualify as predator.
The one time I found a black widow spider, I relocated it outside. Put a glass jar over it, carefully slide some cardboard under, take it outside & dump it out under a bush. I’m not as familiar with those and I’ve heard they can be aggressive if they have eggs, so I wasn’t willing to share living space with her. It’s not like I don’t have plenty of other spiders patrolling.
The tarantulas we used to get always got relocated back outside. Although there’s nothing quite like waking up from hearing one partner tell the other “there’s a tarantula on your head”.
The one place I lived as a kid that had LOTS of scorpions, I didn’t do anything about them because the cats killed them all. In fact, I didn’t even recognize them as scorpions for the longest time because I’d only seen them dead. They flatten out and don’t look at all the the classic “scorpion” that you see, they’re really kinda funny looking.
We did get scorpions one summer in my previous abode. We killed most of them, primarily because they kept insisting on stinging me. I believe most of them either got stomped or squished with a broom.
Poisonous snakes natural to the area are rattlesnake, copperhead, and cottonmouth. I don’t worry about cottonmouths, since I don’t live near water. Rattlers are pretty rare, too, I’ve never seen one near a residence.
I have seen copperheads near houses, although not often. Probably, I’d just catch and relocate them (very carefully!), but I have some experience handling snakes and have never seen them anywhere with Animal Control available. I’d call A.C. if that was an option; they have better equipment than I do.
OTOH, if it was a recurring problem, if the snake seemed particularly aggressive, or was in a difficult location or something, I’d probably just kill the bugger. They’re not a rare species or anything. Most people just use a shovel to chop off the head. If I had problems with lots of venomous snakes, I’d get me a kingsnake or bullsnake and give it a nice place to live instead - they’ll run the others off.
My brother did bring home a baby copperhead once. We had a terrarium and caught/kept all kinds of critters. Snakes never lasted more than a couple of days before they’d get out and Mom would find them in the laundry and turn them loose again. Finding that one was a bit of a shock. I’m not sure what she did with it, I was a wee tot. She had to approve all snakes after that, before they went in the case. (I don’t know why snakes always get in the laundry, but if you’re ever missing one - go look in the clothes.)
I worry more about the mammals (possums, skunks, coons, cats, dogs, squirrels, bats, etc.) than the venomous critters. They’re much more common, much likelier to bite, and can have rabies. I’ve had skunks move in under my house (another good reason to keep a snake there instead!), and I saw a (different) skunk walking down the road once that I’m quite sure was rabid - and those were both in town! I’ve had possums and squirrels get into the house and although fortunately those are the least likely to be rabid, they will bite the teetotal crap out of you if you try to catch them to put them out.
You’ve been stung by a scorpion, redtail? What happens? I always thought it was a huge deal and you had to get to the ER, stat, or you could die. You sound so casual about it! I’m impressed.
You take pictures and start a thread about it, of course.
Ok, I might be playing a little fast and loose with the term “dangerous” here…
I once heard a odd sound in my cubbord that resembled rushing water.
It was a small rattlesnake that came into my house probably due a door being left open by one of my children.
My son said that he would take care of the situation, he got his b-b gun and proceeded to shoot the snake right dab between it’s eyes. I would have taken care of it myself, but my son wanted to show off his newfangled skills with his new weapon. I was ready with my shovel if the situation got out of control.
I have killed at least 5 other snakes within 15 feet of my front door of my house in the 8 years we have lived where we live. I just use a flat headed shovel and remove it’s head. This can be easily done if you move slowly.
Only once did I have a “close call” when my stupid dog decided to get brave and nearly throw the snake at my feet…I must have jumped a mile that time…lol:D
We have bunches of these things in Florida and we ain’t in the Southwest.
Aww, I remember that thread. It was awesome. And hey, possums are CREEPY.
None of our Aussie pals have mentioned the duck billed platypus. How often does one encounter one of those?
I remember seeing a documentary on them and though both the male and female have little spur on their foot, the male can deliver a venomous jab.
They interviewed a guy who had been barbed by one and he said it was the most excruciating pain he had ever endured. And he had been shot and hit by shrapnel before. :eek:
So I want to know if the little buggers are known to run frothing at the mouth through town terrorizing the locals.
You would virtually never encounter a platypus outside a zoo. They are shy and reclusive creatures, either underwater or in their burrows the whole time. And they’re not found in residential areas, only wild streams.
Only the male has the poison spur, and no-one really knows what it’s for.
As noted earlier most ( all but one species found in Arizona and the extreme south of California ) scorpions in the U.S. are, excluding a rare occasion of anaphylaxis, completely harmless. I’ve been stung a couple of times by a couple of different species while helping an former roomie collect them. One was virtually unnoticeable, the other was sorta bee sting level. Some, like the Florida Bark Scorpion, are a bit worse but still not life-threatening.
The vast majority of the time scorpion stings in the U.S. are no big deal. Out of ~1500 species of scorpions worldwide, only around 25 are considered potentially deadly, with only the one inching into the southwestern United States.
He may have meant Southeast. I don’t think you see cottonmouth or coral snake west of Texas, anyway.
I did mean the Southwest, but it’s quite possible that I was mistaken. I am, at least, pretty certain that they’re not found in the North.