Spiders

[longfiredragon]

I am always trying to move forward in life and learn new things. If I am mistaken I have no issues with admitting it.

It will just mean I learned something new again. I do not have any pictures, never felt the need to take any. I am currently in tombstone AZ. So can't run down a take any photos.

I am no expert as I stated before. I just like educating myself on things.

A member posted a link from the Florida agriculture department. Which I read a similar one years ago. It verifies for a fact that brown recluse spiders are in the state of Florida in quite a few counties at the time it was written. Not only are they in Florida, but 3 different variants are in Florida.

Also one of the counties they were found in was orange county. The county I live in boarders orange county.

The article also states that in some of the counties they were found in a pretty large populations. It's not me stating this, it was the Florida agriculture department.

Thinking logically, there is absolutely no reason why something like a brown recluse can't live,thrive and even adapt in Florida. Florida is like spider heaven. There are so many bugs, insects and crap to feed on. Florida rates right at the top of how many snakes,bugs,spiders, insects and such per acre of land in the world. Point is they would have an abundant food source all the time. Which could also explain their rise in numbers, and ability to thrive somewhere new.

Also I stated this before, please Google it for yourself. Brown recluse spiders build several different types of webs. Including the kinda funnel shaped ones I mentioned earlier.

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[Wabujitsu]

I am always trying to move forward in life and learn new things. If I am mistaken I have no issues with admitting it.

It will just mean I learned something new again. I do not have any pictures, never felt the need to take any. I am currently in tombstone AZ. So can't run down a take any photos.

I am no expert as I stated before. I just like educating myself on things.

A member posted a link from the Florida agriculture department. Which I read a similar one years ago. It verifies for a fact that brown recluse spiders are in the state of Florida in quite a few counties at the time it was written. Not only are they in Florida, but 3 different variants are in Florida.

Also one of the counties they were found in was orange county. The county I live in boarders orange county.

The article also states that in some of the counties they were found in a pretty large populations. It's not me stating this, it was the Florida agriculture department.

Thinking logically, there is absolutely no reason why something like a brown recluse can't live,thrive and even adapt in Florida. Florida is like spider heaven. There are so many bugs, insects and crap to feed on. Florida rates right at the top of how many snakes,bugs,spiders, insects and such per acre of land in the world. Point is they would have an abundant food source all the time. Which could also explain their rise in numbers, and ability to thrive somewhere new.

Also I stated this before, please Google it for yourself. Brown recluse spiders build several different types of webs. Including the kinda funnel shaped ones I mentioned earlier.

Darryl, here is the FL Dept of Agriculture and Consumer Services brown recluse circular, citing a study, that is posted on their website. It verifies what I and others have been saying. https://ccmedia.fdacs.gov/content/download/9810/file/ent406.pdf

 

[longfiredragon]

Wow, I am going to leave it at this. Brother no offense but that article verifies nothing I or you haven't already known and some of what has already been posted here except one detail.

It's from 2001! It's over 20 fricken years old, and it goes back even 30, and 40 years, and further.

Thanks for the interesting conversation.

 

[swampflyer]

Call Andrew Zimmern from the cooking channel he will eat anything. lol.

 

[Wabujitsu]

Wow, I am going to leave it at this. Brother no offense but that article verifies nothing I or you haven't already known and some of what has already been posted here except one detail.

It's from 2001! It's over 20 fricken years old, and it goes back even 30, and 40 years, and further.

Thanks for the interesting conversation.

Brother, great point about the age of the research! It’s difficult to find current research, but I did manage to do so.

I tracked down my acquaintance, the spider biologist, Lou Coticchio. He conducted a study of the various recluse spiders in Florida, starting in 2018. The project is ongoing, along with one about the brown widow displacing the black widow. His conclusions are the ones I’ve been repeating here, with the exception of one new thing I’ve learned. St. Augustine has a significant number of Mediterranean recluse spider populations; their presence in those numbers is a mystery, and he is still working on it.

Here is a really good interview with him.

He says one thing he’s learned is that people are TERRIBLE in general at spider identification. The Southern House Spider, which is found in large numbers in FL, look almost exactly like the brown recluse, down to the violin on the back of its head. He says that spider is the one most frequently misidentified as the brown recluse.

I highly recommend this video if you are fascinated by spiders!

 

[Mine&Hers]

Residual insecticides don’t work on spiders. Even if they walk through the insecticide, it won’t affect them because, unlike insects, they don’t clean their exoskeleton with their mouths. They don’t even have an exoskeleton, and they don’t groom like insects.

A bug bomb might work, because the insecticide is inhaled.

We have had to deal with invasive brown widows, and invasive, HUGE, Huntsman spiders in our vehicles. The Huntsman give me the willies! My wife was driving in town one day, looked at her rear view mirror, and there were spider legs COMPLETELY WRAPPED AROUND the upper and lower edges of the mirror, from the Huntsman on the back of it! They can achieve a leg span of five to six inches, and they move like lightning.

Fortunately my wife isn’t freaked out by such things.

About the only thing you can do about spiders in a vehicle is to physically remove them, or deprive them of food by using insecticides. If there’s nothing to eat, they leave or die.

My 9mm would come out on that one ?

 

[redsyphon]

I'm sure it's already been suggested, but to the OP it may be time to consider purging the Jeep with righteous fire, as once infested there's no recovery.

As a FL resident, I have learned to live with spiders. Even if they do spend their lives hiding... planning... plotting... waiting for the perfect moment to STRIKE from the shadows, but i digress. Check your shoes (especially if you keep them outside/garage) or just wear flip flops (this is the way). And once a "house spider" gets large enough to be heard running across the wall, bring out the big guns... WD-40 + Fire usually works, if it's too big/fast to catch and release. Though, there is a small risk to the napalm tactic.

^ Some of the above is sarcasm... some of it isn't! ?

 

[Mifsuud]

Even if they do spend their lives hiding... planning... plotting... waiting for the perfect moment to STRIKE from the shadows

You make them sound like cats...

 

[blessidsoul12]

I am always trying to move forward in life and learn new things. If I am mistaken I have no issues with admitting it.

It will just mean I learned something new again. I do not have any pictures, never felt the need to take any. I am currently in tombstone AZ. So can't run down a take any photos.

I am no expert as I stated before. I just like educating myself on things.

A member posted a link from the Florida agriculture department. Which I read a similar one years ago. It verifies for a fact that brown recluse spiders are in the state of Florida in quite a few counties at the time it was written. Not only are they in Florida, but 3 different variants are in Florida.

Also one of the counties they were found in was orange county. The county I live in boarders orange county.

The article also states that in some of the counties they were found in a pretty large populations. It's not me stating this, it was the Florida agriculture department.

Thinking logically, there is absolutely no reason why something like a brown recluse can't live,thrive and even adapt in Florida. Florida is like spider heaven. There are so many bugs, insects and crap to feed on. Florida rates right at the top of how many snakes,bugs,spiders, insects and such per acre of land in the world. Point is they would have an abundant food source all the time. Which could also explain their rise in numbers, and ability to thrive somewhere new.

Also I stated this before, please Google it for yourself. Brown recluse spiders build several different types of webs. Including the kinda funnel shaped ones I mentioned earlier.

Not sure where I missed the article saying anything about "pretty large" numbers or populations? Again, no one is arguing there are recluses in Florida. That is an absolute that cannot be argued, but there are entomologists and arachnologists who have spent careers in FL and have seen not a single Loxosceles specimen.
Having lived many years in Lawrence, KS which has been verified as having some of the most dense populations of brown recluses in the country, I can tell you that they can infest a building easily. Every storage box, behind every picture frame, behind every headboard, in every sock drawer, under every sink and just plain walking across your living room floor multiple times per night- recluses EVERYWHERE. And incredibly, very few bites are ever diagnosed in that region. Weird, right? It's not, really. It's human nature- whatever that morbid fascination with taboo critters is- medical professionals are guilty as well, that makes people believe something exists that doesn't. So as many people who travel to FL from the midwest, if recluses could have established where they aren't native then they would have. Clearly they are nowhere near as adaptable as say, L. geometricus, which have erupted and damn near wiped out L. mactans in the SE and L. hesperus on the west coast.
Again, I am not sure where this info is coming from but BROWN recluses do NOT make funnel-type webs. They do not make webs under awnings and such. They just don't. I am not speaking about the exotic recluses, I only know about reclusa and deserta.

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