Ah! Spider! BIG Spider!

[The Ranger]

I was out tonight attempting to reduce the number of pests through
direct conflict that generally feast on my garden and trees unfettered
from human contact. I was providing vigilantly style justice to several
snails, slugs, pincher bugs, and beetles when I ducked my head into a
heavy silken thread stretched from my persimmon tree to one of my cars.
This type of steel-cabling has usually been a good indicator of a black
widow. But the Shelob that greeted me was not black nor did she have the
tell-tale hour-glass in the abdomen. This Behemoth was orange and gray!
It had a bulbous body like a blockier but wasn't as aggressive.

I've just read an article in Discover Magazine on spiders in the US and
immediately thought of the hobo spider. Has anyone else run across this
spider or can you provide any other information on it?

The "Arachnophobic" Ranger

PS: She was FAST! Before I finished staring at her, she was back in the
persimmon tree and gone for the night.

[Wellington Bear]

The Ranger wrote...

Post by The Ranger
I was out tonight attempting to reduce the number of pests through
direct conflict that generally feast on my garden and trees unfettered
from human contact. I was providing vigilantly style justice to several
snails, slugs, pincher bugs, and beetles when I ducked my head into a
heavy silken thread stretched from my persimmon tree to one of my cars.
This type of steel-cabling has usually been a good indicator of a black
widow. But the Shelob that greeted me was not black nor did she have the
tell-tale hour-glass in the abdomen. This Behemoth was orange and gray!
It had a bulbous body like a blockier but wasn't as aggressive.
I've just read an article in Discover Magazine on spiders in the US and
immediately thought of the hobo spider. Has anyone else run across this
spider or can you provide any other information on it?
The "Arachnophobic" Ranger
PS: She was FAST! Before I finished staring at her, she was back in the
persimmon tree and gone for the night.

I have no clue what kind of spider it might be. My philosophy towards
spiders is to let them be until they get in my face. I'll even tolerate
them inside my house, only whacking them when they stand a chance of
crawling on me, like the spider ON MY BED the other day or even if they're
walking across the ceiling over my bed.

Other than that I leave them alone. I've got lots of spiders around the
outside of my house and I believe they keep the bug population in check.
I had a spider in my gazebo and I would sit out there and watch him spin
webs day after day. The problem is that I don't have a bug problem
except for ants, and spiders don't eat ants nor do other species except
for horned toads and anteaters that I know of.

As for black widows and brown recluses, their dangerous venom automatically
puts them in the "in your face" category and you are justified in killing
them. One of my cats was bitten by a black widow years ago and she was
practically unconscious when I took her to the vet and he described a
pool of liquified flesh that had to be surgically cut out.

[The Ranger]

Wellington Bear <***@tea.party.com> wrote in message news:8i24f.1515$***@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...
[snip]

The problem is that I don't have a bug problem except
for ants, and spiders don't eat ants nor do other species
except for horned toads and anteaters that I know of.

[snip]

Blue-bellies and alligators (both state-wide varieties of lizards) LOVE
ants. I've seen blue-bellies camp atop a busy ant hill snapping sugar
ants up as they came out. I wished I had my camcorder! I sat there for
two hours watching it unfold as one would eat his fill, scamper off only
to be replaced by another that would eat his fill and then leave. The
"break" in the routine came when an alligator lizard showed and he
proceeded to do the same.

The Ranger

[Wellington Bear]

The Ranger wrote...

Post by The Ranger
[snip]

The problem is that I don't have a bug problem except
for ants, and spiders don't eat ants nor do other species
except for horned toads and anteaters that I know of.

[snip]
Blue-bellies and alligators (both state-wide varieties of lizards) LOVE
ants. I've seen blue-bellies camp atop a busy ant hill snapping sugar
ants up as they came out. I wished I had my camcorder! I sat there for
two hours watching it unfold as one would eat his fill, scamper off only
to be replaced by another that would eat his fill and then leave. The
"break" in the routine came when an alligator lizard showed and he
proceeded to do the same.

Oh cool! Thanks for the info. I just moved here from South Texas and
my last house had ants from hell, they had infested the walls and we
had to dump poison powder into the electrical outlets and spray the
entire yard and it still never completely eliminated them.

I'm hardly a tree-hugger, but I do see the wisdom of maintaining some
sort of ecological balance. Disrupt the balance and you wind up with
vermin. I was inspired by a story I read about a guy whose house was
infested with cockroaches, and instead of poisoning them he bought a
bunch of frogs and turned them loose and the frogs not only ate every
cockroach, the guy then had to buy feeder roaches for the frogs.

While in Texas I toyed with the idea of breeding horned toads to
unleash on the ants. I love lizards and I had fairly native anoles
and non-native Mediterranean geckos crawling all over the outside of
my house, but neither ate ants.