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Posted
One more reason I love living in Buffalo!!! I dont have to deal with critters like that! Nothing around here that will kill you. Ill take the snow thank you very much!

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On the other hand, you can have humidity and mosquitoes galore.

Posted
Wife called me over, freaked out by a large black spider she almost touched...looked suspicious, so I prodded it a bit with a stick and got it to flip over...

 

Here's what I saw

 

Damn, that'll make me think twice next time I do yardwork...

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The widows are pretty common out here like Sanners said

 

It's the brown recluse that you have to watch out for ! :w00t:

 

http://home.texoma.net/~linesden/spider.htm

Posted
On the other hand, you can have humidity and mosquitoes galore.

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Amen to that!

Posted

Yeah, we've got those bastards down here in GA too... my mother actually was looking at a "pretty snake" (she lives in SC) a while back... Coral Snake.

 

Had a widow on my deck few months back. Big bastard.

Posted

I've also heard the black widow's bite is overrated. Very painful, but it's rarely fatal. Even the brown recluse bite is rarely fatal. Its bite is worse though. I think its venom contains a compound that digests flesh, so it can make for a very nasty sore, and does normally require hospitalization.

 

The coral snake, like a black widow, is pretty docile. Bites are rare. They have short fangs set toward the back of their mouths, so it's much harder for them to bite through fabric than for a rattler (longer fangs set in the front of the mouth). Its venom, however, is a faster acting nerve venom, like that of a cobra though. There is a lookalike snake, that people can mistake for a coral snake. I've forgotten the name of it though.

Posted

They're common in the SF bay area also. Can usually find one if you lift up one of those plastc irrigation control valve covers.

Posted

When I was in college I almost stepped (barefoot) on a good-sized Widow. :) I ran and got a jar and captured her easily enough. I named her "George Carcass" after a friend of mine who hates all creepy-crawlies, and over the next few weeks I fed her a steady diet of bugs, mostly moths since they were always fluttering around my dorm room and annoying me. Watching her stalk and kill the moths was really cool. A true assassin. The moths never knew what hit them. One day I noticed a huge egg sac had appeared overnight. Apparently female Widows, like many spiders, can store previously obtained sperm for months at a time, and they fertilize their eggs when they get a good food supply. Eventually hundred of cute littly baby Widows emerged and ate everything they could find including each other. I gave the survivors to a researcher on campus who works with a company that milks the venom to make antivenin. Pretty cool. Sadly George passed away one day after eating what I suspect was a tainted bug. But I'll always have the memories. :flirt:

Posted

:flirt:

All spiders must die...regardless of your greener's life to all stand. Evil creatures. :)

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[/

 

:( KILL ! KILL ! KILL ! KILL ! KILL ! KILL ! IT !:)

Posted

Brown recluse spiders are more dangerous, and common in the USA

Posted
When I was in college I almost stepped (barefoot) on a good-sized Widow.  :) I ran and got a jar and captured her easily enough. I named her "George Carcass" after a friend of mine who hates all creepy-crawlies, and over the next few weeks I fed her a steady diet of bugs, mostly moths since they were always fluttering around my dorm room and annoying me. Watching her stalk and kill the moths was really cool. A true assassin. The moths never knew what hit them. One day I noticed a huge egg sac had appeared overnight. Apparently female Widows, like many spiders, can store previously obtained sperm for months at a time, and they fertilize their eggs when they get a good food supply. Eventually hundred of cute littly baby Widows emerged and ate everything they could find including each other. I gave the survivors to a researcher on campus who works with a company that milks the venom to make antivenin. Pretty cool. Sadly George passed away one day after eating what I suspect was a tainted bug. But I'll always have the memories.  :flirt:

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That's a very nice story - in a pretty twisted kind of way. :)

Posted

[ quote=Alaska Darin,Sep 6 2004, 07:31 PM]

That's a very nice story - in a pretty twisted kind of way. :o

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Yeah, strangely enough that seems to be an accurate description of most of my stories....:rolleyes:

Posted
I've also heard the black widow's bite is overrated.  Very painful, but it's rarely fatal.  Even the brown recluse bite is rarely fatal.  Its bite is worse though.  I think its venom contains a compound that digests flesh, so it can make for a very nasty sore, and does normally require hospitalization.

 

The coral snake, like a black widow, is pretty docile.  Bites are rare.  They have short fangs set toward the back of their mouths, so it's much harder for them to bite through fabric than for a rattler (longer fangs set in the front of the mouth).  Its venom, however, is a faster acting nerve venom, like that of a cobra though.  There is a lookalike snake, that people can mistake for a coral snake.  I've forgotten the name of it though.

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King snakes mimic the coral's coloring. Corals are Red->Yellow->Black, whereas King snakes are a bit different. Ever year the "red then yellow, kill a fellow" rhyme?

 

She's sure it was a Coral.

 

I'd a shot the @%er.

Posted
King snakes mimic the coral's coloring. Corals are Red->Yellow->Black, whereas King snakes are a bit different. Ever year the "red then yellow, kill a fellow" rhyme?

 

She's sure it was a Coral.

 

I'd a shot the @%er.

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Hence the reason I own a .410. Too bad I don't need it - Alaska doesn't have snakes (or income/sales taxes).

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