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I've heard people claim that Black Widows are shy, not aggressive and won't bit unless monkeyed with. I say that is a flat out falsehood. They are aggressive and will ambush you. I've seen it far to often and I've been bitten before. Hazard of the trade.
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Weird.
When I lived in the high desert, there wasn't one thing in our back yard (including ac, etc) that didn't have a black widow web on it. Three years, no bites. They just sat there. Those effin bark scorpions were the real buggers.
One summer, I lived in a tiny mountain village in Oaxaca. The room they gave us had high ceilings. Above my cot were TWO black widow webs. It freaked me out that I'd be sleeping under them.
6 weeks later, and those two spiders just minded their own business the whole time.
Gave me a new perspective on those things.
My wife wouldve grabbed my kids and abandoned the house. And if I wasnt home at the time she might not even have bothered closing the door behind her.
No. Something like that is considered terminate on sight with extreme prejudice. Then we'd have to take turns keeping watch at night to make sure none of his buddies are still at large.
Weird.
When I lived in the high desert, there wasn't one thing in our back yard (including ac, etc) that didn't have a black widow web on it. Three years, no bites. They just sat there. Those effin bark scorpions were the real buggers.
One summer, I lived in a tiny mountain village in Oaxaca. The room they gave us had high ceilings. Above my cot were TWO black widow webs. It freaked me out that I'd be sleeping under them.
6 weeks later, and those two spiders just minded their own business the whole time.
Gave me a new perspective on those things.
That being said, INSIDE my house...you die.
The Widows are thick here to. And they don't mind their own business. My work put me in close contact with all manner of crawlies that would bite sting stick and stab. Spiders, snakes, scorpions, vinegaroons, sun spiders, etc. Never been snakebit but have tangled with all the others. One Widow bite, the first one, was quite bad. Took venom on that one. Like poisonous snakes, spider don't always (most often don't) inject venom with defensive type bites. Black widows have a two stage venom system. A "dry" bite will still inject their hemotoxic venom, which will raise a bad welt and hurt, but their second stage is a neurotoxin, and if they inject that, things get more complicated.
Rattlers don't often invenomate with defensive bites either. But the bacteria in their fangs will still land you in the hospital ricky tick. Cellulitis with necrosis sets in within short hours, if they do inject venom things just escalate from there. Our scorpions up here are nothing like AZs. None of them are much worse than a bee or hornet sting. Still hurts, but they won' hurt you much unless you're allergic. The further South you go, the worse the scorpions get. The Bark scorpion is extremely nasty for it's size. They WILL hurt you. Our scorpions run the gamut from the little yellow guys to the big green or black ones. But as far as being dangerous not so much, beyond a painful sting. Which they are all to happy to give.
When my son was about maybe 7-8 or so, his cat woke me up early one morning around 0300, meowing and batting me on the nose. I was irritated and groggy and just tossed her off my chest. But she came back. So I sat up, she jumped off the bed and I hit the lights and swung my feet over. There she was with her paw across a 4 inch green scorpion right next to the bed. I figure she killed it in my sons room and then came to show me. GOOD KITTY! She immediately got a bowl of tuna and some serious praise. That was the biggest scorpion I had ever seen get in the house. Got little ones all the time but this one was a trophy.
Living in the desert you get in the habit of shaking out your boots before putting them on as well. Scorpions like to get into shoes. And having a cat or two around is something I can recommend from experience. However, the spider in the OP would probably give the orneriest of barn cats pause.
I've seen some good sized dangerous creatures here in oz. I always try to escort them safely outside. Like Dalton says: " Be nice-until it's time to NOT be nice".
My daughter was and still is terrified of spiders no matter the size or cuteness. My husband and I would alternate smacking the daylights out of them and getting rid of them over the years. I'm not that crazy about them either but I don't freak out screaming and having hysterics like my daughter. Sorry, but when you are crawling around inside my home, you take your chances.
A huge spider would give me pause (how best to kill it), but he's going down.
I tend to relocate smaller spiders into the less obvious parts of my house. I figure any critter that eats insects is a friend of mine and I don't mind the webs. If I had come across a spider like the OP described I would probably have tried to fit it with a leash and kept it as a very low maintenance pet.
I have designed machines of various kinds in the past. some were mobile. some were not supposed to be but were anyway. I admire the incredible mobility of spiders and similar creatures. I also admire how dragon flies fly. Simply astonishing. They show what nature can do with 10 of million years of trying.
No matter the size, relocate the creature or yourself. What nonsense to allow something that weighs less then a pound to die, simply because a person can. Given my human conscious,I choose to allow it to exist...No matter how many miles away I run when I see one!
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