Creepy Crawly Spiders

Brown Recluse Spider. This spider's bite is not very painful but causes much pain when its venom starts to eat away at your flesh. A person in Bristol, Rhode Island was bit over the summer. It bites only in defense. So if you see this spider, it should leave you alone. 

Spiders are just plain creepy. I don't know if it's the eight, gangly and hairy legs or the big black, unforgiving eyes that look right through you with a predatory stare. Crawling on walls, skittering on the floor, hiding in crevices and corners. When I was little, I sometimes wished they were all dead. That tells you how little I knew about food webs back then. Because without spiders, insects would surely rule the Earth and "bug" us all to death.

 I hate our Halloween spider decoration. It hangs from the ceiling and any loud, sudden noise makes it drop on a string and then it slowly pulls itself back up the string. It's now on the steps in the foyer just sitting there looking at passersby, doing more of what a real spider would do. Maybe I'll smash it with my shoe after Halloween, doing more of what a bug killer would do.

And as the only male in the house, I am the celebrated bug killer. I sometimes look in the mirror and see a metallic bug zapper with blue lights, indiscriminately killing any insect or arachnid that comes my way. During "Spider Season", which lasts from March through August, I am used to being told that a HUGE or WICKED LARGE spider is somewhere in the house and that I should kill it. Every single time I see this HUGE spider, I am relieved to find that it is simply normal-sized, because what they do not know is the actual size of some spiders that I have seen in the past. Two or three times I have witnessed an enormous spider that dwarfs all the ones I have seen in my life. No one else has seen these spiders and I don't care to inform my family members because I don't enjoy inflicting psychological harm on other human beings. These Monsterquest spiders are dead now but I know they probably reproduced.

 So when I see a spider I tell myself two things; "I am not its food," and "It gets rid of mosquitoes." These things calm me and gives me a brotherly bond with spiders in our mission to rid the Earth of evil, blood sucking mosquitoes. But even with our brotherly bond, I still think they are creepy. Very creepy. Included below are some pictures of spiders I have seen over the summer.

Enjoy if you dare.

My Mom is trying to get a black jumping spider to come out of the crevice. I say  "let sleeping spiders lie!" 

 

Wow! This was a huge jumping spider on my driveway. I let it live. 

I said three words with I saw this spider. OMG. This was huge orb spider in a defensive posture. I let it live and the next day it made a web in a bush next to the house. 

This is another orb spider. Pretty huge. I caught it in a jar and let it loose in a pine tree farther away from the house.
 Go get 'em mosquito slayer! 

This is a flattened weird spider near a bike path in West Warwick. It might be related to a jumping spider. 

I have no recollection of this spider. Very big abdomen here. Makes me appreciate those Daddy Long Legs. 

When I go geocaching I sometimes blindly put my hand into dark crevices and holes like this. All for a geocache? It's the thrill of the hunt. I'm just hoping that I don't become the prey someday!