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Black Widow Spider

2K views 25 replies 12 participants last post by  saltymalty 
:eek: Talking about spiders jinxed me because I just killed a daddy long legs in the bedroom.. YUCK! I'm highly allergic to insect and spider bites and every time I've had one it became a huge horrible infection and all yucky, I've almost always had to go to the doctor to get some kind of shot to make the swelling go down. Now I'm all freaked out about spiders :wacko:
 
Originally posted by ButterCloudandNoriko@Sep 29 2004, 01:01 PM
I forgot what the name of these spiders are, but they have that fiddle on their backs.  EWWWW.  I can see it's web outside my kitchen window.  My bf killed one, and then saw another one in the same spot!  My dog likes to nibble on bugs too.  YUCKI!  I don't want kisses after that!
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:eek: The ones with the fiddle on their backs are Brown Recluse so be extra super careful around those.. their bite is really bad and can cause the flesh around the bite to start to decay and make a pit around the bite, they are super poisonous.
 
I just looked the daddy long legs online and here's what I found

The Daddy long-legs spider, also called the cellar spider or house spider, is a true spider and not a harvestman. Daddy longlegs is a name that is used for several unrelated arthropods with extremely long and thin legs, including these spiders, the harvestmen and tipulid crane flies.[/B]
There is an urban legend stating that this family of spider is extremely venomous to humans. Although there is no conclusive proof of this, the venom of the Pholcidae has been found to cause severe neurological problems in lab mice. In 2001/2, Discovery Channel's Mythbusters set out to test this myth and, on mice tests, Blackwidow venom was significantly more toxic. One of the show's hosts was bitten, and the bite produced little more then a mild shortlived burning sensation.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daddy_long-legs_spider"[/B]
 
Well.. I did some more researching and apparently Daddy Long Legs is more like a nickname for any bug/spider/whatever that has super long legs. I don't want to freak anyone out so I'm just posting the links, but here are pictures of the two kinds of Daddy Long Legs... I'm thinking the one I killed was the Opiliones one. Both are classified as Arachnids.

Opiliones

Pholcidae

The creatures most correctly called daddy-longlegs are in their own separate Order which is Opiliones. Common names for this Order are 1) daddy-longlegs, 2) harvestmen and 3) opilionids. They are characterized by having one basic body segment which shows segmentation on the posterior portion, at most 2 eyes and all 8 legs attach to the pill-like body segment. They are usually found under logs and rocks, prefer moist habitat although they can be found in the desert, often have long flexible legs (in the temperate Northern hemisphere but there are also short-legged daddy-longlegs) and they do not produce silk so therefore they are never found in webs unless they are being eaten by spiders. Because they are found under logs and other stuff which people most often are not turning over, most folks don't run into daddy-longlegs very often.

Another creature often called daddy-longlegs are actually spiders. These long-legged spiders are in the family Pholcidae. Previously the common name of this family was the cellar spiders but arachnologists have also given them the moniker of "daddy-longlegs spiders" because of the confusion generated by the general public. Because these arachnids are spiders, they have 2 body basic body parts (cephalothorax and abdomen), have 8 eyes most often clumped together in the front of the body, the abdomen shows no evidence of segmentation, have 8 legs all attached to the front most body part (the cephalothorax) and make webs out of silk. This is most probably the animal to which people refer when they tell the tale because these spiders are plentiful especially in cellars (hence their common name) and are commonly seen by the general public. The most common pholcid spiders found in U.S. homes are both European immigrants. Pholcus phalangioides is a uniformly grey spider with rectangular, elongate abdomen and is found throughout the U.S. Holocnemus pluchei also has a rectangular, elongate abdomen but has a brown stripe on the ventral side (the belly side - which is typically directed upwards since the spider hangs upside down in its web) which covers its sternum and is a stripe on the abdomen. These spiders are very common along the Pacific Coast. and into the southwest deserts.[/B]
Oddly enough, I'm not feeling as scared of them after looking at all those pictures... I say that now, but I'm sure I'll scream the next time I see one anyways :ph34r:
 
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