A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Unless the spider in question is a likely danger/hazard, leaving them be is generally my policy. They don't usually bother me. That said, the time a calisoga spider got in the house, it caused a visceral fear reaction. I didn't kill it though, just got safety glasses and trapped it before releasing it outside (I didn't know that it was not a tarantula at the time).
to continue the story: so, he was released in the wilderness and the other 2 spiders saw him all clean and posh that decided to beat him up and mug him.
Spiders deserve to live, Mosquitoes deserve to die
Even vegans agree.
Are mosquitoes angels?
Spiders are comrades in my ongoing extermination war against against mosquitoes.
i love spiders, they are such helpful creatures.
My rule has always been simple. It I'm in its house (outside), it's not my business. If it's in my house, I have to make a choice. That choice was always smash (I'm arachnophobic), but my daughter has led me down the paragon path and I now save more than half of all spiders inside of my house. Maybe more. I don't get that many spiders in my house here in arid western Canada.
*not that many that you see
Even though I still have arachnophobia, I've intentionally lived with spiders for over a decade and I've not had issues with mosquitoes even if I left all of my windows open. And my roommates are thriving!
They're very chill roommates, too! After about 1-2 months of adjusting to living together in my old apartment, they stopped spinning webs in the areas which I used frequently and focused on the zones which I left out for them - ceiling corners, gaps between walls and furniture, etc. I did occasionally clean up their old webs every now and again (while taking great care not to bother the spiders themselves) because they also gathered a lot of dust. But they'd replace the old webbing in a matter of days.
And they never developed overpopulation issues, even though I did see them producing egg sacks regularly. I was expecting to drown in spiders by the end of the first year of trying this arrangement, but I never counted more than 15-20 spiders apartment-wide.
Yeah I've always had similar arrangements with spiders. I don't bother them if they don't bother me. Wolf spiders chilling in my bathtub do get expropriated through the nearest window though.
Oh, wow! I'd probably just die if I ever saw a wolf spider in my tub! Like, complete simultaneous organ failure, the energy which is me would just eject from my body.
Lucky for me, I live in Temperate-Continental, so my biggest threat is seeing a Long-Legs dangling down to check up on me while I'm showering!
And I'm serious about this. Maybe it was just me imagining things, but I swear they started inspecting me every now and again. Like, I'd be at my desk playing, and I'd see one rapelling from the ceiling, like 20-30 cm away from me. Seldom has any descended onto the actual desk, though, they'd just hang for a bit, then climb back up. It was strangely comforting, though, it makes them feel a lot more alive and present than the mind would tend to think about an eight-legged thing right out of my nightmares. They really have become my roommates.
I did yelp. And it took me some time to trap it because I was terrified to touch it. I don't have arachnophobia but I still find the big ones deeply unsettling
Oh, I 100% understand that. Wanted to try handling a tarantula in a German pet shop, nearly fainted (knees got weak the instant I registered her on my skin, and I could tell she was not in any way aggressive...).
On the other hand, I've had one of those massive cockroaches sniffing around on my face, and not even a twitch. I seldom understand my brain.
❤️
Those spiders you find inside may be of a type completely adapted to living indoors with humans. Putting one outside means death.
They’re cave-dwelling spiders. They still need a way to find new caves to inhabit. If they’re already settled in your house then they may not survive because you’ve interrupted their lifecycle. But new spiders are wandering in all the time. Those ones may have better luck finding a new house to move into (or coming right back into your house) because they haven’t been established yet.
I made this mistake with a stink bug when it was winter. It was ok with being on the piece of paper I had it on. When I opened the door and the cold air hit it, it backed away towards me. I set it down and it stopped moving. Oops. :(
Big this.
Spider bro is my ally against the wool moths, at the moment. If I catch one I'm putting it in the closet.
They earn their keep.
We had aphids in the garden last year. Wolf spider moved in, big fat guy. Made short work of em. Wolf spider is welcome among my lettuce any day.
I have so many spiders on the lower floor of the place I'm in now I've given up on even bringing them outside. I identify what they are to keep track if we have an uptick in dangerous ones. If it is a particularly gross one it goes in the garage to war it out with the cellar spiders otherwise I just shoo them under furniture so I don't have to think about it. Damnit I'm turning into my dad...
They keep the bad stuff out, I figure. I try to put them in my plant pots if I find them around.
I agree that we shouldn't disturb nature, but let's not forget that animals kill each other all the time. There's no such thing as ethics in nature.
What if we are the ethics in nature
What if the real ethics in nature were the friends we made along the way?
My cat says
👀🍽😼
(eats it then spits it out, then try to eat it again, repeat until dead)
Sorry spiders, I'm team Cat.
Cats are actually psychotic. Multiple times I've seen my parents cats catch a live mouse on the front lawn, break it's legs, and play with it for awhile just releasing and catching it over and over again until they get bored and just eat it. I'm only on team cat out of self-preservation.
I swear there are spiders downvoting in this thread... Who wouldn't be team cat lol
I like spiders until they bite me when I sleep. Then peace is over.
yeah, me too. Fortunately that has never ever happened.
Well then stop sleeping with spiders. Geez. /s
Prude. /s
My wife and all my kids are deathly afraid of spiders. I put them all outside and I'm happy that's the example I'm setting.
Spider bro, spider bro, keeping that fly population low.
Spiders are good, they eat the other bugs that cause trouble. The spiders we have are tiny though.
I have severe arachnophobia, i can't kill spiders i am too afraid of them. But my cat is a ruthless killer and never fails to make them dissappear.
My preferred method is using a piece of paper, slide it gently under them and lift.
Tried and true! I also add a jar because they make me jump, I can't help it lol. I have had big orb spiders crawl on me in the woods while climbing in the US and we have large spiders here incl. the giant English house spider here. They are both the size of hands. Freak me the fuck out haha.
I saw a couple recluse spiders in my apartment several months ago and maybe I’m an idiot, but I left them alone. They were truly more scared of me than I was of them. They don’t want to bother me and only will if I threaten them. So I left them alone and they just chilled in their “recluse” hiding spots.
Uhhhh....I would not fuck around with recluses. One bite will melt a golf ball size hole in your flesh. If you really want, you can catch and release but you for sure don't want them in your house. If they breed, you're looking at a serious problem.
Widows are more common in my area and I do the same.