I actually had nightmares about this last night because of this damn thread!  I was in my kitchen, and in every nook or corner there were huge, sluggish scorpions.  This thread has really given me the heebie-jeebies.

My fear of spiders comes from when I was in 1st grade (5 years old, I think).  I woke up one morning and couldn't see a thing.  My body felt really strange, but I wasn't really in pain.  It turned out that I had spider bites and my ENTIRE body, including my eyes, swelled up.  After a trip to the doctor where I got some shots, one of my eyes opened up after a few hours.  It took a few days and several more shots for the swelling to disappear.

Like spiders there are different types of scorpions, some will kill if not treated in time. I have heard that scoprions with large claws are generally less toxic then ones with small claws because they don't need to rely on venom to subdue their prey.

Son of a bitch!  Here's another...I was moving some plants in my backyard garden areas about an hour ago.  After all the work, I figured I'd water them in and watch the sun set.  Rather than run a hose, I just picked up my watering can and went for a nearby spigot.  Out comes this black widow zipping past my hand and into the can.  I poured the whole thing out on the driveway to get a better look...got a glass jar real quick to capture the thing.  

Did I know these little phuckers could jump?  Heck no.  Damn near peed in my jeans.  But she's a pretty one.  Big old red hour glass thing on her belly and resting peacefully under glass on the deck.

Jim

I'm with you guys!  I can't stand spiders or Florida cockroaches.  Guess I'm a wuss, too.  Not so much afraid of cockroaches as think they are the most vile little creature alive.  Funny thing is, tarantulas aren't that bad.

I thought "daddy-long-legs" were actually Aphids.  Don't know if I got the spelling right.  At any rate I know they're not spiders since they don't have fangs, and do not have a two-piece body.

Damn man, after that, I would be killing every one of those little bastards I could. Understand the nightmares.

That's the word as I understand it, however, there are wxceptions to every rule. I don't have the nerve to play with the wild ones anymore, but the ones from the pet stores are pretty cool, big ole pincers.

slt223

You might be aware of this but if not just a little review.

All spiders have eight legs and are arachnids.  Arachnids, besides eight legs, have two body parts, a cephalothorax (fused head with thorax) and the abdomen.  

An aphid is an insect.  All insects have six legs and three body parts, head, thorax and abdomen.  

Daddy Long Legs are an arachnid (spider).  Very beneficial but they do get in the way alot of times.

Yeah, I'm a total wuss when it comes to spiders too.  Serious phobia.  A few nights ago I had a nightmare that very large spider jumped on my neck and I woke up screaming.

Ortho makes something call 'Home Defense' that really works.  I have no idea what's in it but I spray it around the perimeter every year and it put a lid on our spider problem.

One of the things I hate about Florida is no freeze in the winter. In Iowa 90% of the critters die every year. In Florida they live for years and get BIG.

I don't know what kind they are, but we got the black and yellow banded fuckers down hear the size of IHOP pancakes.

Even worse they spin webs about the size of your average garage door.

So you are out running around in the brush playing paintball and whatnot, often at night, and you run right into these damn things. The scary part is when the web is so goddamn big and structurally sound, it actually stops you. Only thing worse is when it collapses and drapes around you, usually with that big ass fricken thing somewhere in it.

As a result we sweep the area as much as possible anymore. You should see what a paintball does to these things. They don't enjoy it.

This is sooo funny.
Its good to know that I'm not the only one that really hates these things!
I'm not scare to death of them, but their the only insect (yes I know its not considered an insect) that I won't take my eyes off of until its dead.

I can't believe that no one has brought up snakes. The only good snake is a dead snake, or so my pops says. He used to kill water mocasins for bounty as a kid growing up in JAX, FL. I freakin hate snakes. Spiders are ok in my book.

Gotcha!  Learn something new every day!

I'm going to agree with this sentiment as well.

My grandparents owned about 60 acres near the Olympic National Rain Forest.  When I was a little kid I would walk and play for hours snooping/digging/clawing/walking/brush busting/smashing skunk cabbage etc.  I had a blast.  One time after a good afternoon of digging tunnels in rotting downed old growth I was getting undressed to take a shower. (Ohhhhhh just got shiver remembering it).  Ok.. twelve years old, naked, covered in dirt,... and this huge nasty demon spawn piece of vile blood sucking hell runs from the top of my head down my back, up my back, over my shoulders, across my chest and... hell I don't know where he went.  I was pretty much in the panicked flailing twelve year old mode.

It was one of those really big, hairless bastards that could only have been the offspring of demons and nightmares.  

While I hate spiders, and snakes too, what REALLY gives me the creeps are BEES. Not honey bees or bumble bees, but hornets. The big black bastards with white faces that build the cone shaped nests. You haven't really lived until you've had a swarm of those bastards after you. Wasps rank a close second.

I think spiders are pretty cool, at least until they get within the arachnoid version of "21 feet." Then, if I'm at work, the can of chlorinated brake cleaner comes out! That stuff works so fast, they don't even have time to do the kibbie before they're dead. Any spider I find in the bathroom is dead, too, because you don't want to just jump up from what you're doing in there. I avoid using porta-potties as well, because you never know what might be lurking in there. Throwing insects in a web is still fascinating to me, especially when you consider that the spider is pretty much blind and finds the prey by vibration. The way they come running does make me shudder, though!

Wasps, bees, etc, don't bother me - we used to use wiffleball bats to play pinata with wasp nests in trees and see how many hits we could make before they came out en masse. Sometimes you ran faster than the wasps, sometimes the wasps flew faster than you ran. Nests in the ground really suck when you step on one, and "white-asses" (don't know the correct name but you'll know one if you see one) can really put a hurtin' on ya!

I like catching a black widow or two and putting em in the same cage.  See who wins or just watch the one eat.  Hahaha.... they gets hungry.  The wife hates it but she gave up and bought me a nice terrarium for it.   I have found about 15 IN houses I have lived in in the past 10 years.  Outside, they are everywhere.  

The worst in my book is a brown recluse.  Had one on my shoulder till my buddy smacked it off me and then showed the thing to me.  I bought him a few beers.

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I've run into half a dozen be hives.  I've just been lucky that way.  I consider it Karma for all the bees I caught, tortured and killed when I was a kid.  Bee's don't bother me.  Snakes don't bother me.  Those ugly misshapen bulbous naked nasty demon spiders bug me.