if it does it again get pics [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] damn 4-5ft is HUGE!bigest i've seen is 2ft across and about 3 deep

 

Man those game geeks have some pretty cool avatars.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

Could of sworn that there only in Australia. Get alot a people a year... In TN we had to deal with Recluses...my dad saw quite a few people in the ER being bitten by them

 

Maybe they started there bu thanks to our worlwide shipping they are probably everywhere.

 

we got those spiders around here

 

I know theres one spider here in the U.S that builds a funnel web but the one I'm thinking of isn't poisonous. I remember when I was in the service and in Austraila they warned us about the funnel spider and told us how it was more deadly than our rattle snakes! they said that most bites ended in death! Never can tell about them being imported though. I know we used to never have the brown tree snake but it came over from Africa on cargo ships not they are starting to pop up in different areas.

 

The Brown Recluse (Loxosceles reclusa), more commonly called the Fiddleback, is extremely common around here but not very feared since they use a necrotic venom which only attacks cell tissue. The Black Widow (genus Latrodectus) however use a neurotoxin which affects the central nervous system. This results in shortness of breath, confusion, dimensia, and too often cardiac arrest.

There are two genus and 26 known species of funnel web spiders (found only in Australia and Tasmania). Genus Atrax and Hadronyche , both of the family Hexathelidae both use neurotoxin but only the males are poisonous. There are varieties of spiders that dwell in North America that make funnel shaped webs but these are members of the family Agelenidae. The only one of these that is venomous is the Hobo Spider (Tegenaria agrestis) which uses a necrotic toxin and produces similar effects to the Brown Recluse. The Hobo Spider is actually classified as a house spider.

More information on spider bites, identification of arachnids, and first aid for spider bites can be found at Ohio State University's College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

~HoundDog

 

We have recluses in AZ alot......I actually got bit by one in Reno, though......didn't know what it was, but my knee got infected and the skin started to peel off.....my mom took me to the doctor and I had to take antibiotics for weeks to get rid of it.......not real painful, though.......then I got bit again here by one not too long ago, and the reaction wasn't very bad....I took antibiotics right away and it went away pretty quick. I also sat on a scorpion once, but that's another story!! LOL!!!

I used to have a "pet" barn spider at our house in Reno when I was like....12! It had a web right outside our front door (if you haven't seen these things, they are pretty FUGLY) and I used to catch moths for it every night and throw them in his web and watch him catch them........by the end of summer, I was getting ready to feed him again, and he was so fat he actually tore his web and fell out of it!!! I had to pick him up and put him back up there.....and then put him on a diet!! LOL!!! It was funny, because everytime he saw someone come out the door, he'd race to the center of his web.........

I don't mind spiders....I will leave them alone or put them outside.....unless they are black widows or recluses.....then they get the SHOE. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

I remember I found a widow once, fed him to my Oscar. He loved it!

Bing, those Hobo's **** me off. I used to stay in Portland during summer break when I was in school. They're all over up there.Igot bit by one(I think anyway) and had a circle with a 3in. circumference on my leg of nasty purple, rotted looking skin for over a year.

 

440grl, did you name the spider? I had an orb weaver named louie that was huge, check my previous post.