Entomophobia

Sometimes it is hard to be a Texan. When we lived in the Midwest we might have seen a cockroach once every few years. Here we see them ALL THE TIME and they are so big they should probably be paying rent. Luckily we haven't seen too many snakes, but we have heard stories--of them living in garages, finding their way to bathrooms. If we found a snake in our bathroom we would probably die on the spot. We are fragile like that. Spiders don't usually trouble us. We might wake up with bites, but at least their skittering across our knees and arms doesn't wake us up the way a GIGANTIC COCKROACH probably would. Of course, sometimes the size of the spiders we see around here is a little alarming. Sometimes we want to make our way to Alaska and set up in an igloo so we wouldn't have to deal with all of these bugs and rodents and reptiles.

In our last house, we were regularly greeted by the second largest spider we have ever seen in the natural wild (the first was the tarantula we saw in the parking lot at work--yikes!). It lived right outside our back door, its web secured to low hanging branches. We named it Leon and hoped it was doing a good job of eating mosquitos. Leon proved to be a pretty good neighbor. He kept to his business and we kept to ours, but he waved hello each time we saw him. Okay, he didn't do that. He just freaked us out a little every time we let the dog out. Oh, crap, big spider!

In our research on spiders, we learned that only a few of the 900 species of them in Texas are considered harmful. Recluse spiders and Black Widows are the only ones that are actually poisonous. We wouldn't say we have entomophobia (the irrational fear of insects), but we'd prefer to confine our sleeping companions to those with two legs.

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By Alison Coffey in Other on August 11, 2005 4:34 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Alison

Kat: Maybe it was a banana spider. It looked as big as that. And as scary. Creepy banana spiders!

Rod: I'm sorry for the catfish and the spider and for you. So much violence.

Edward: I know fear of spiders is Arachnophobia because I've seen that bad Jeff Daniels movie, but I wanted to be more general with bug fears and entomophobia was the closest I could come. Good catch!

sage

I hear someone say once, somewhere, can't remember anymore,

"You are never more than 3 feet away from a spider"

Kat

Even better banana spider pics...

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~plank/plank/pics/spider.html

Kat

I love bugs (and arachnids). This was a fun post:) It gave me something to Google in the last hour at work. Thanks, Allison! Incidentally, that doesn't count for roaches. In my opinion, roaches are not insects either. They are evil golems. The really big fat ones aren't really roaches though, I don't think. People around here call them water bugs or tree roaches. The ones that totally infest your house and never go away (the atomic bomb surviving ones) are German cockroaches. I have moved into many a rent house that was previously occupied by trash-loving crackheads, and consequently had many a long conversation with pest control guys at my local bar, trying to figure out the best way to get rid of an embedded infestation. Hard chemicals don't even work unless you combine them with extreme cleanliness. Better option--check out the dark corners of any place you are thinking about moving into for "roach dirt," and if it seems copious, move on.

edward

Spiders are arachnids, not insects, so if you were afraid of them you'd have arachnophobia

Rod

Last year as I was leaving my apartment I noticed this big ass spider hanging off the frame. As I tried to walk around it, it recoiled to a fighting position, tracking me like a snake. I thought it was weird and touched it with a paper, but before I could touch it, the spider attacked me. I attempted to hit it, but was only succesful in pissing it off as it swung back on it's line for round two. I was amazed that this little thing could be so damn vengeful. I was able to captue it in a jar 'cause I wanted to know what species of spider it was ... not recognizing it's patterns as anything I has ever seen before. I was unable to determine a match, and gave it to my aunt so her husband could ask a spider-fan friend of his. I'm not sure how it ended up as fish food, but somehow my aunt fed it to her husband's 2 year-old pet catfish (yes, I said pet catfish). As the fish attempted to eat the spider, the unknown specimen bit the fish on the lip. Two days later, Filet died. True story.

Kat

Banana spider pics...

http://home.att.net/~larvalbugrex/argiope.html

Kat

Banana Spiders are cool. Was Leon a Banana Spider? I almost took one of those in the face the other day riding my bike through a feild. They aren't poisonous but I hear a bite from one of those is sort of like a bite from a rat (it hurts). Scary.