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Black Widow - kill or keep?

davidji said:
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.
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On Ozone, by chance?
 
Abacinator said:
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.
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While we were in Manteca I tried to control them myself. I got a spray tank of Diazanon (whatever the spelling is) and started spraying all over including the eves by the rain gutters. They came sliding down from there and I said, that's it time to bring in the professionals.

Dan
 
davidji said:
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.
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Read Vetter's book. Brown Recluses live in something like large colonies. A few houses may be infested, and neighboring homes may be free of them. Vetter describes a family in KS that lived in a house with 2000-something Brown Recluses. They have basements back there. One possible bite occurred in 10 years. A house is a good habitat for them. Within their range, they are not hard to find, they aren't rare. Tip over a board and find a few. Schoolboys can catch them by the dozens. We would know if they were here. There have been a couple of dozen specimens since the 1930's found in the LA area and Angeleno's aren't finding them.You can send a photo of a dead spider to UC Davis or UC Riverside if you think it's a Brown Recluse. It isn't. I moved my family in a UHaul van from Missouri to LA once, that's what Okies do. We might have had a few in the boxes or something. Couple of dozen specimens, 20 million people, 85 years, they just aren't reproducing down there.

This isn't what the desert recluse does either. It doesn't live in houses in large numbers. If you find someone who stuck his hand under a rock at Willow Springs and took a bite, then developed typical creeping necrosis, you might convince but you won't impress. These are vanishingly rare events.

Same thing in Florida, much more similar to their native habitat than CA. Hundreds of Brown Recluse bites reported, but almost no spiders found. Just because there's a bad ass spider in Arkansas doesn't mean it can find it's favorite prey and outcompete local spiders in CA or FL.

I have a confession. Doctors sometimes make shit up. When you see your doctor with a skin thing and they tell you it's a Brown Recluse bite, they don't know what it is. They almost certainly never practiced where BR's live, never saw a bite, never saw the spider and might as well tell you it's a whale bite because they never saw that either.
 
davidji said:
No have you seen any there? For what it's worth, that's the climb I've done the most. This was in a heuco just right of Butt Hole.
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No, I haven't seen any there; it was just the first undercling that came to mind. :laughing

It's also been a very long time since I've climbed there. The last time I was back, I was able to set cams in some of the rope grooves. :wtf Didn't used to be quite like that.
 
When I referenced brown recluse, I wasn’t insinuating they were in California.

They were in Texas when I was there and I had a dentist that got bit and dealt with it for six months.

I was only lucky enough to get stung twice by scorpions there. Which suuucccccks.
 
Archimedes said:
When I referenced brown recluse, I wasn’t insinuating they were in California.

They were in Texas when I was there and I had a dentist that got bit and dealt with it for six months.

I was only lucky enough to get stung twice by scorpions there. Which suuucccccks.
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My buddy in AZ used to have a HUGE scorpion issue on his property until he got some chickens. Fresh eggs and they eat scorpions. He told me about one to,e when he walked onto his porch and saw a scorpion. The chickens were all the way on the other side of the property. He turned around to grab the broom that was laying against the wall behind him. In that time, one of the chickens had run over from the other side of the property and had the scorpion in its mouth by the time he turned around with the broom.
 
wannabe said:
My buddy in AZ used to have a HUGE scorpion issue on his property until he got some chickens. Fresh eggs and they eat scorpions. He told me about one to,e when he walked onto his porch and saw a scorpion. The chickens were all the way on the other side of the property. He turned around to grab the broom that was laying against the wall behind him. In that time, one of the chickens had run over from the other side of the property and had the scorpion in its mouth by the time he turned around with the broom.
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Awesome. :laughing
 
wannabe said:
My buddy in AZ used to have a HUGE scorpion issue on his property until he got some chickens. Fresh eggs and they eat scorpions. He told me about one to,e when he walked onto his porch and saw a scorpion. The chickens were all the way on the other side of the property. He turned around to grab the broom that was laying against the wall behind him. In that time, one of the chickens had run over from the other side of the property and had the scorpion in its mouth by the time he turned around with the broom.
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I wonder if it effects the flavor of the eggs.
 
wannabe said:
My buddy in AZ used to have a HUGE scorpion issue on his property until he got some chickens. Fresh eggs and they eat scorpions. He told me about one to,e when he walked onto his porch and saw a scorpion. The chickens were all the way on the other side of the property. He turned around to grab the broom that was laying against the wall behind him. In that time, one of the chickens had run over from the other side of the property and had the scorpion in its mouth by the time he turned around with the broom.
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my mom lived in arizona for many years, and yeah, the scorpion issue was huge. her’s were not the large black ones, but the small cream colored ones. they were everywhere. very unnerving.

on another note, and also with regard to scorpions - lavender is reported to repel them. apparently no one informed scorpions of this. it is most definitely NOT TRUE (or at the very least - not reliable).
 
wannabe said:
My buddy in AZ used to have a HUGE scorpion issue on his property until he got some chickens. Fresh eggs and they eat scorpions. He told me about one to,e when he walked onto his porch and saw a scorpion. The chickens were all the way on the other side of the property. He turned around to grab the broom that was laying against the wall behind him. In that time, one of the chickens had run over from the other side of the property and had the scorpion in its mouth by the time he turned around with the broom.
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People also don't realize that chickens eat poison oak shoots as they come out in the springtime. Witnessed this up in Sonoma County when we moved onto a place that hadn't been lived on for a few years. We had to clear the big stuff, but the chickens took care of anything new. And it's the kind of anecdote that makes doctors shudder, but nobody in the family ever got poison oak after that period of time, presumably because we were eatin the eggs from said chickens.

Chickens can actually be brave little dinosaurs.
 
To the best of my knowledge, Black Widows don't build traditional webs. They tend to stay near the ground and their web is just a mess of random silk.

Mad
 
Maddevill said:
To the best of my knowledge, Black Widows don't build traditional webs. They tend to stay near the ground and their web is just a mess of random silk.

Mad
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Generally true. If left alone long enough, they will move upwards though.

Decades ago, there was a tent cabin on family property up in Humboldt. People would only sleep there during family visits (our 4th of July reunion). I remember laying on a cot and looking up and seeing the largest black widow imaginable, it's abdomen was bigger than a marble and it was way up there in a big messy glob between the supports. I knew it wasn't going to "drop" down on me but it was still a bit unsettling and I couldn't reach up there with available items. I have never seen one that big since but I'm sure of the id.
 
Bay Arean said:
Generally true. If left alone long enough, they will move upwards though.

Decades ago, there was a tent cabin on family property up in Humboldt. People would only sleep there during family visits (our 4th of July reunion). I remember laying on a cot and looking up and seeing the largest black widow imaginable, it's abdomen was bigger than a marble and it was way up there in a big messy glob between the supports. I knew it wasn't going to "drop" down on me but it was still a bit unsettling and I couldn't reach up there with available items. I have never seen one that big since but I'm sure of the id.
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It must have just consumed a really good meal. I had one in a jar for awhile and after it fought and ate a really big wasp it's body was more than twice it's normal size.
 
I used to have a gf who worked all night at a gas and grocery in Visalia. I would go hang out sometimes. There was a high aluminum structure over the pumps with flourescent lighting. There were dozens of BW’s catching bugs flying near the lights. Maybe height doesn’t bother them if there’s cover and consistent light to draw bugs. There’s probably more prey at ground level usually.
 
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