Black Widow - kill or keep?

[Shaggy]

Nuke that mofucka

 

[wannabe]

There are no populations of brown recluse in California: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7468.html

Finding 20 is not the same as zero.

 

[Brokenlink]

Finding 20 is not the same as zero.

20 individuals are not the same as a population.

Most, if not all of the individuals collected and confirmed in CA were either found in a box shipped from their home range (Texas, New Mexico, etc) or from a vehicle that has come from those locations.

A population consists of a self-sustaining breeding population, which does not occur here. Here is another link, feel free to call me full of shit, but please read the available information first: https://spiders.ucr.edu/myth-brown-recluse-fact-fear-and-loathing

 

[Snaggy]

Put it in a mason jar and keep it as a pet

I kept a Black Widow in a terrarium for a while, named her Lacey. It was all good until she started rushing the little door where the crickets came from. Feeding her got a little too exciting.

20 individuals are not the same as a population.

Most, if not all of the individuals collected and confirmed in CA were either found in a box shipped from their home range (Texas, New Mexico, etc) or from a vehicle that has come from those locations.

A population consists of a self-sustaining breeding population, which does not occur here. Here is another link, feel free to call me full of shit, but please read the available information first: https://spiders.ucr.edu/myth-brown-recluse-fact-fear-and-loathing

Nice link from Dr Richard S. Vetter, an entomologist at UC Riverside, who made a job of debunking the Brown Recluse stories in CA. Now retired, he wrote an excellent book called "The Brown Recluse Spider". It's a good read, with great photos.

He and I corresponded for a while and he sent me some reprints. He knew my old Derm Prof at Missouri, a national bite expert. We saw bites sometimes at U of MO, they're nothing like what you generally see on the web. Even in that area, MO, KS and OK, where a single house might have hundreds of Brown Recluse Spiders, bites aren't very common and the vast majority don't lead to the creeping necrosis.

 

[Brokenlink]

I kept a Black Widow in a terrarium for a while, named her Lacey. It was all good until she started rushing the little door where the crickets came from. Feeding her got a little too exciting.





Nice link from Dr Richard S. Vetter, an entomologist at UC Riverside, who made a job of debunking the Brown Recluse stories in CA. Now retired, he wrote an excellent book called "The Myth of the Brown Recluse Spider". It's a good read, with great photos.

He and I corresponded for a while and he sent me some reprints. He knew my old Derm Prof at Missouri, a national bite expert. We saw bites sometimes at U of MO, they're nothing like what you generally see on the web. Even in that area, MO, KS and OK, where a single house might have hundreds of Brown Recluse Spiders, bites aren't very common and the vast majority don't lead to the creeping necrosis.

Yup,
He had an online challenge where he would pay money (50 bucks I think) if anyone could send him a verified recluse from CA. I don't think he ever paid a penny because nobody ever found one.

 

[gixxerjeff]

I'm late to this party but will respond anyway.

Just re-read your first post but every time you read "black widow" change it to "rattlesnake".
Next question.

 

[bergmen]

We have them around the house, inside the barn and shop. I have a can of carb cleaner strategically located in each area. I zap them, don't want the chance of getting bit.

In the shop, they will lower down from the ceiling. I know since their web is about the strength of 2lb fishing line (or so it seems). Other webs are just an annoyance. There are times when I don't go into the shop for a week or so, I swing one of my old golf drivers back and forth to clear the webs when I am heading towards the tractor.

Dan

 

[bergmen]

A black widow bite will be an inconvenience for most adults. It may be a a real threat to a small child. I kill them if they are places kids might go, and kids go in some weird places.

Same here. When we lived in Manteca, I found them everywhere and this is where we started raising our family so we had little ones. I hired an exterminator who had an excellent system. First, he sprayed around the house and then (once a month I think) sprayed the perimeter of the place. We had 1/2 acre so he would just spray around the fence line. No odor at all, no health risk and never saw another black widow. Worth every cent.

Dan

 

[Abacinator]

We have them around the house, inside the barn and shop. I have a can of carb cleaner strategically located in each area. I zap them, don't want the chance of getting bit.

In the shop, they will lower down from the ceiling. I know since their web is about the strength of 2lb fishing line (or so it seems). Other webs are just an annoyance. There are times when I don't go into the shop for a week or so, I swing one of my old golf drivers back and forth to clear the webs when I am heading towards the tractor.

Dan

We have tons around here in the warmer months. Never seen one up high. They always lurk near the foundation or in dark corners of the garage.

 

[DTM74]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend...until I see a black widow. Then its Die! Die! Die!

 

[littlebeast]

We have tons around here in the warmer months. Never seen one up high. They always lurk near the foundation or in dark corners of the garage.

now that you mention it - i’ve never seen one up high either. wrt large spiders, we have a few zoropsis and orbs that seem to like high places, but i’ve never seen a black widow above about waist height (and that was inside of a pool pump enclosure).

and speaking of orbs, we had a huge beautiful one in the eves over our front door for several months. she’d build a large web each day, and it would be a ratty mess by the next morning (rinse/repeat). we let her be until she got ambitious and built a HUGE web across the sidewalk leading up to our porch (between 2 trees). my SO called it to my attention. he was staring out the window and said ‘okay, i think she’s trying to capture the mailman’. we re-located her after that.

 

[ScarySpikes]

Jeez, for such a big group of tough motorcyclists, you guys are kind of just big wussies. Might as well go buy scooters.

When I was growing up, a black widow bite sent one of the neighbor kids to the hospital. Most other spiders I don't mind as long as they aren't in the house. Black Widows die on sight. It's not a fear thing as much as it's just a habit.

 

[johnk]

I grew up in SF and spent the first 50 years of my life freaked out by black widows and other large spiders. Then we moved to the country and I made myself get over my spider phobia. We have a lot of black widows and other large, awesome looking spiders. They don't want to mess with you so all you have to do is not accidentally mess with them.
If they are inside in a place we think will be a problem we take them outside, otherwise it's live and let live.
We got a few of these https://mycrittercatcher.com/ scattered around the house. They work great.

 

[planegray]

This. While the venom is extremely powerful, it's also administered in tiny doses. I've crawled in crawlspaces in California for fifty plus years, surrounded by them, and have never been bitten. You're in more danger by far from a chihuahua. I have been bitten by a chihuahua.

There's got to be more to this story....were you and the Chihuahua both trapped in a spider web ?

 

[Bay Arean]

I don't know why my Mom had to tell me it was bad luck to kill a spider but she did. I have a hard time doin it. I have tons of em in my basement and some in the garage. Very common in East Bay basements and crawlspaces. The males are way smaller and more pale and spotty.

 

[Kurosaki]

I'm Spider-Man.

 

[tzrider]

When I was a little kid, a ranger at the Donner Lake campground told us at a campfire program that black widows sometimes hang out on the underside of the toilet seats in outhouses. That was enough to make me check the underside of every goddamn toilet seat for the next 30 years.

 

[Snaggy]

When I was a little kid, a ranger at the Donner Lake campground told us at a campfire program that black widows sometimes hang out on the underside of the toilet seats in outhouses. That was enough to make me check the underside of every goddamn toilet seat for the next 30 years.

My Grandma in Arkansas always said that too. In her opinion, black widows were worse than splinters when you sat down in the outhouse.

 

[davidji]

We have tons around here in the warmer months. Never seen one up high. They always lurk near the foundation or in dark corners of the garage.

Never saw one up high in the garage. I did in my metal shed though, on the rail along the apex of the roof.

At a climbing area at Mt Diablo I saw one living behind an undercling--where you'd stick your fingers to grab. I guess you'd feel the stiff web first, and hopefully pull your hand back.

I've read that the biggest thing that reduced the incidence of black widow bites was indoor plumbing. Apparently getting bitten in outhouses was a thing.

 

[davidji]

Nice link from Dr Richard S. Vetter, an entomologist at UC Riverside, who made a job of debunking the Brown Recluse stories in CA.

There are a few varieties of recluse spiders in California. We may not have brown, but other than experts, who would know the difference? If you can tell one recluse spider from another, you're an expert to me. The others are poisonous too.

The range of animals is always tricky. You'll have experts insisting a particular creature isn't in a specific place, but the range of the creatures changes over time.

For example they tell us we don't have hobo spiders in California. I'm sure it was true at one time. It may be true still. But it likely won't be true in the future.