house pets
No we haven't suddenly bought a cat. Or a dog. But we still have house pets.
Yup... spiders. Lots of daddy long legs and lots of these.
Daddy long legs are creepy and I can't stand them, but this little fellow is kind of cute. He and his friends run everywhere inquisitively, don't build webs (a plus in cleaning terms), jump short distances and hopefully scavange any pesky insects around the place. I kind of don't mind these spiders, because they will also interact- they look around and sniff the air and don't run away the minute you walk up. And that whole web thing - it's the webs that are spooky, as if the spider is running through mid air. These guys don't make webs, so they're all together more desireable. If you must have spiders in the house that is.
That being said, I decided I should investigate how venemous they might be. Unfortunately I wasn't able to identify them from any pictures on the internet (possibly a jumping spider, but they are apparently quite colourful), but I did develop shakes and shivers while viewing all the other pictures - surely it's a criminal offence to publish spider photos the size of a computer screen! Eeeew, it freaked me out quite a bit, especially the mouse spider. I'm still having cold shivers just thinking about them. (Pleased to report that they don't live in Tasmania!)
Apparently most house spiders are not venemous. And you shouldn't take them outside instead of killing them, because they can't survive there. They are house spiders, used to dry and warm conditions.
So there you go... I don't have the heart to kill these little cuties, so I guess I'll just have to learn to live with them!
posted by cecily @ 5:45 pm
6 comments
6 Comments:
Looks like a white tail maybe. If it is, be careful. They don't run away because they're quite comfortable with jumping and their bite can be quite nasty -- flesh eating venom in fact.
But I might be wrong. It might just be a little cutie.
;-)
Actually it's not a white tail at all (you made me look them up!!) but most likely one of these lil fellas:
http://www.usq.edu.au/spider/find/spiders/405.htm
Relatively harmless by the looks.
um, I actually already know what white tails look like... we've killed one or two here before. You can add to the pets a rodent of some sort in the ceiling - heard it while I was in the bathroom this morning. Shiver.
I hate spiders, but if you must have them (and I think in Aust you're pretty much stuck with them) then non-web building ones are good. I wouldn't stretch it so far as to call them cute though!
I also looked at that website yesterday, but it didn't look quite right. The markings are slightly different. Anyway, these little ones don't match any venemous nasties, so I figure we're OK. :-)
Yeah, yours looks like a cross between the male and female versions. Oh no! You're breeding hermaphrodites!
We have proof about Tasmania here, peoples!
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