Arachnophobia

[steuard]

I don't think I'm excessively nervous around spiders. Sure, I tend to react poorly if they're actually on my body, and I'm not eager to share my living space with big ones. But in general I think spiders and their webs are pretty cool. Relatively few are dangerous, so there's no reason to be paranoid about them. In fact, I've never been near a dangerous spider that wasn't in a cage.

Or so I'd assumed. A student mentioned last week that some Scripps dorms have black widow spiders in their basements. Still, I've never spent much time in the Scripps dorms: no worries. But then another student commented that you could sometimes see them around the steps of our science building. So, ok, they're around, but it's not as if they're a visible presence.

But no. Coming back from lunch today, another faculty member pointed out a big web made by a black widow. Three feet from where I park my bike. This suddenly casts the small webs I've found on my bike itself from time to time in a whole new light.

Comments

[jminnis.livejournal.com]

Black Widows aren't that bad because they're big and easy to spot. The Brown Recluse (not native to California) is the scary one in the US.

[nemene.livejournal.com]

They are all around, most of the US has at least one species of black widow native to it. Not many people die from them or even get by them. This means that being around them isn't that big a risk.

[kirin]

I ran into a honking big black widow when pulling up some old plastic edging from a garden. It's generally true that they'd rather stay out of your way, but that's not so much help when you have to stick your hands into or disturb various dark corners in the course of yard work.

Now, brown recluses, those were all over the place in MO. The guy who ran the outdoor camp I attended got bit by one and it took weeks to heal.

Ugh, spiders. I'm only fond of them if they're going to mind their own largely stationary business in some part of a garden I don't need to be in and eat bugs. We had some pretty orb-weavers for a few years.