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Was doing some cleaning in the garage yesterday and and this sucker coming crawing up the wall. I've seen Black Widows before in my home state of VA but, I've been living here in UT. for seven years now and this is the first, and largest one, I've ever see!

It was at least the size of a half-dollar if not bigger. I should have placed something beside it to give you an idea of it size but, I was getting that close to it. I hate spiders and this one gave me the creeps.

That is Utah Life my Friend, You never have just one, You will always have several around the House. Mostly in the basement, Garage, Outside around your Exhuast vents to the Dryer, Window Seals. They like the radient heat given off from the Cement. Dark and damp is where you will find them.

Nothing to worry about. Their as common as Flies

Now if you see a Brown Recluse. ...RUN

I spent a couple weeks in the hospital due to one of those.

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\"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. \"

George S. Patton

We used to see them that big and bigge about this time of year in the hanggers at DM. On mids, we used to get an empty trigger sprayer bottle, put some JP-4 in it and with a lighter, you had quite the flame thrower for roasting those nasty buggers.

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Slow is Fast, Fast is Slow
Violence may not be the best option, but it IS an option

I would have shit-stomped the hell out of that thing. I haaaaaaaaaate spiders.

Ewwwwwwww

Kinda cool looking though.

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\"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives\"

I hope that ya smooshed it.

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YGBSM !

Don't say that, We will have the wrath of \"HETB\" all over this thread!

Horrido for the Ethical treatment of Bugs!

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\"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. \"

George S. Patton

O'yes I smashed it, one whack with a shoe and it became a wet spot the size of a half dollar.

Ummm...what's a \"half-dollar\"?

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\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson

Black widows really aren't any big deal, they're pretty non-aggressive, shy, and not nearly as dangerous as people make them out to be (granted, with Dice's little one it's still best to watch out and be rid of them). I just keep them as jar pets corral them into a container and drop them into brush across a drainage ditch. On an arachnoboards website, we'd have competitions who could grow the largest black widow. I've had some with a 2 in leg span from front to back and a grape-sized body to go with it.

Unless freshly imported in luggage and moving crates, brown recluses/fiddlebacks are east of Texas/south of Tennessee only. In the west, you'll have issues with hobo spiders (which are actually seldom found indoors and diminishing in numbers due to predation from harmless \"giant house spiders\", which are HUGE!) and yellow sac spiders. It's one of those two that probably got Thug if it was a local bite for him.

I still laugh, my barefoot sister accidently stepped on a giant house spider one night. Grossed-out my sis, completely ruined the poor spider.

we're all doomed ( well, some of us lol )

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

I've ran into only 3 \"fiddlebacks\" (BR's) here so far lucky I saw them before I got bit.
Black widows were bad in Louisiana , I reached my hand down into the water shut-off and came-up with one on my Glove. She was a BIG one too, made a nice \"Half dollar splat!\" I sprayed every year under the house with bug killer and put down boric Acid.
The biggest problem we have are those what some folks call
\"Prairie Tarantulas \" I call \"Wolfe Spiders\". Never been bitten by one but they scare the \"Shit-out of you! when they fall out of your Shoes!\".
The biggest one I ever saw here, I was mowing grass and I could see the damn thing walking across the yard as I went passed it.Needless to say Spider is NO-MATCH for JOHN DEERE. It looked just like one of those \"Tarantulas \" that were at Travis that they had those signs up in the fall and spring \"Spider Crossing\" You could be FINED for purposely running them over.
But those \"Camel Spiders in the Gulf\" ------------------------------------
Now thats a SPIDER TO BE AFRAID OF!

Goose

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\"Live Free Or Die\"

If you ever get bit by one, get into the doc's pronto. Hate to think how the venom and tissue damage could react with your MS.



We have something around here that are "burrowing wolf spiders," essentially a cross between a wolf spider and a trapdoor spider resembling a small brown tarantula. They're a big, robust, rotweiler/pitbull of a spider and VERY aggressive. I've never had a spider try to strike at me through a glass jar before.



Camel spiders are in the states, too, but here they're a LOT smaller and called "Wind scorpions" and "Sun spiders," though they aren't spiders at all (ten legs [actually eight with two LONG clawless forearms], and no venom or silk spinnerettes), but a different order of arachnid. Think of the relationship between camel spiders and true spiders to the larger class of arachnids as flies and beetles are to the larger class of insects.

IIRC, I think I read an article that Camel Spiders are more closely related to scorpions than spiders. Also, they are mis-construed as aggressive. Yes, they will chase you, but it is normally to remain in your shadow, not to attack you. All I know for sure is they are fast little SOBs.

--Raven

http://www.jaynaylor.com/betterdays/arc ... ria_4.html
Last frame.

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Evil is evil, no matter how small.

Kill it with fire!

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Pete Nelson
Your Warthog Territory Webmaster

I know I always tried to stay in my shadow.

_________________
\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson