Help with spider ID
- Thread starter Roostriz
- Start date
Roostriz said:
My bet is on the "yellow-and-black" or "Golden" Garden Spider - a species that produces a large, radially arranged web in a generally vertical plane (not an orb weaver).
I can't recall the genus for sure, but I think it's pretty close to "Agriopus" or something that sounds much like that.
Spiders are NOT my thing! Back in the 70's my wife had a pet "tarantula" - actually a big Mexican wolf spider - a big ugly sucker that ate pinky mice - that escape its aquarium. I was hurridly packing for a motel stay when she found it under our bed - which, by the way, was on the other end of the house from where it escaped!
O.K.... Hadn't thought of that in years. Now I'll have trouble dropping off to sleep tonight.
Dave
Sorry to bring up the traumatic memories lol. I was a little concerned considering this is going to be our babies room when it arrives in the spring, and it isn't the first spider I have found in there, although the largest to date. I guess I am just going to have to crawl under the house and seal every orifice I can find, I know that the holes from where some of the baseboard heat comes through the floor are a little oversized. Thanks for the replies.
Chris
Chris
Just figured I'd update you guys. I asked my friend who is a biologist with the Pinelands Commission and here is what she said.
"It is a black and yellow Argiope, female
Males are more yellow. They eat flying insects, they prefer sunny sites with little or no wind. They will drop to the ground and hide if disturbed. They have a spiral web that is vertical and radiates out from the center."
Chris
"It is a black and yellow Argiope, female
Males are more yellow. They eat flying insects, they prefer sunny sites with little or no wind. They will drop to the ground and hide if disturbed. They have a spiral web that is vertical and radiates out from the center."
Chris
Dave, you are so knowledgeable it is scary. I had thought it looked very much like an orb weaver, a barn spider in particular, except the body didn't seem large enough so I didn't throw out a suggestion before.
Chris, good luck on the baby in the spring!! While I'm no expert, I think most spiders in our area are fairly benign except for the brown recluse and black widow. I've never heard of anyone finding a black widow in the house around here though.
Jeff
Chris, good luck on the baby in the spring!! While I'm no expert, I think most spiders in our area are fairly benign except for the brown recluse and black widow. I've never heard of anyone finding a black widow in the house around here though.
Jeff
woodjin said:
Jeff,
Your mention of Brown recluse spiders reminded me of a meeting of Iowa wildlife conservation officers I attended in the mid 70's. The over-coffee conversations that day were all about one of their colleagues who had gone out deer hunting on a cool morning a month before (the tale was being told in November). He decided to still hunt. He sat down on a soft stump and resolved to be the soul of immobility until he had to raise his gun to draw bead on a buck. Tough, stoic fellow that he was, he ignored - supposedly without budging - a bunch of "ant bites" on his butt. A few hours later some other hunters passed by and he figured he'd head back in the direction of his car with them, as he wasn't feeling all that well with some nausea and headache. He got home, but after a miserable night of nausea, headache, and intolerable itching, he went to the emergency room of the local hospital where he was informed that he's sustained more than 15 brown recluse spider bites. He was hospitalized for a week or so and ulitmately released - but not before he had sloughed major masses of skin, subcutis, and muscle from his buttocks, the back of one thigh, and part of his perineum and posterior part of his scrotum.
A fellow I knew in grad school showed me a big, ugly, contracted scar that memorialized a brown recluse bite on the inside of his upper arm, from about mid-bicep to just above the elbow. He was bitten on a camping trip as he was getting out of his sleeping bag one morning. He recounted that he had finally had to be handcuffed and sedated to physically prevent him from scratching and further damaging the site of the bite.
From what I understand, the spider venom itself doesn't cause the tissue damage, but it severely reduces the tissue's resistance to contamination by and infection with a variety of bacteria that are introduced by vigorous scratching.
Brown recluse spiders. Real nasty bastards.
Dave
Yup, I was down at my Aunt's if Florida and we went across to neighbors house. He had shorts on and 10" of his lower leg was purplish-black, like someone beat him with a baseball bat. The skin was flakey too. He got bit in the attic by a recluse.
There is a web site that has photos of brown recluse spider bite victims and it ain't pretty! Down right grusome. Injuries appear just as Dave and Bob described. It appears that a good deal of the skin and muscle loss is recovered over a long period of time. I can't remember the name of the site.
Jeff
Jeff
my mother got bit by a brown recluse on her stomach while doing yard work at her house in Toms river a while back. the location of the bite turned into a nasty ulcer that almost looked like a hole rotted in her, she had to have a skin graft in that area. has any one at this site ever found one in the pines. chris
I never have Hewey, but then I may not have recognized it. I found a black widow under a small piece of pottery in my yard a couple years ago. The recluse was not really supposed to be this far north.