NFR Spider ID?

HauntedByWaters · Apr 8, 2023

Rob Allen said:
one time I was camped on the Ronde in October and as I was walking back to camp i came across a black widow just marching across the campground... Long ways from my tent but when i got back to camp I emptied my tent, shook out my sleeping bag and all my clothes then zipped everything up tight!

I was staying in a cabin on the Methow a few years ago and we found a black widow in the outhouse. Kinda scary but kinda expected we moved it out. Then we found one on an outer window of the cabin. Okay, there are some around. Then we found some in the patio furniture. Everybody look before you sit! But then we started seeing more and some in places they weren’t when we arrived. By the third day as we were leaving we saw them just cruising across the ground. It was like some mass reproduction even had happened or they were kicked out of some refuge. I have no idea but there were lots and they were looking for a home. That was about the 12th year I had been in that cabin and never saw one before that and haven’t seen one since.

Big Tuna · Apr 8, 2023

Years ago I was fishing South Junction on the Deschutes. It was October to all the spiders were headed for cover. In the corners of the bathrooms the black widows were strung up in their webs...like 5-6 per sani-can. Never took a dump before daylight.

WonkyWapiti · Apr 8, 2023

krusty said:
I remember those things around Iwukuni MCAS, as well as the hordes of bats that swept out of the surrounding hills every night.

I was at Iwakuni in the early 90's, I do remember those bats! Semper Fi

krusty · Apr 8, 2023

WonkyWapiti said:
I was at Iwakuni in the early 90's, I do remember those bats! Semper Fi

Semper Fi bro! I was stationed there in the early 70's. Lived in a trailer next to the seawall swamp boondocks. Party Central.

Every time I walked across the Kintai Bridge I longed for a flyrod and wondered if the Nishiki River contained trout. It certainly looked like trout water...clear and cool.

BCO · Apr 10, 2023

Bugmeister said:
Central America has lots of scorpions. For some reason I seem to run into them a lot in Panama. They are big and pretty creepy. One year one of my friends stepped on a scorpion when we were drinking a few beers after a long day of surf (in Bocas del Toro province - @SurfnFish i’m guessing you know that area). It was not good - he ended up heading home early for medical treatment.

When we lived in Hawaii, i used to have to deal with both scorpions (little, almost translucent little buggers) and gnarly centipedes. Blech. Nope. No thanks. Spiders, insects, and creepy crawlies generally don’t bother me too much….but nor do i want to hang out with them if i can help it. That goes extra for mosquitoes.

I used to see really big (BIG) spiders called joro spiders back when I lived in Japan (Southern Japan, on the Pacific) I’m pretty sure they aren’t poisonous but they were pretty imposing. I swear some were in the ~6 inch range and looked like they are about an ounce or so. Yellow and black in coloration. In Japan they are sometimes seen as good luck. Go figure! Lot of the insects you see in the tropics are big versions of something or another. The cockroaches (gokiburi) in southern Japan were a) ginormous and b) could fly.

Kenneth Yong · Apr 11, 2023

I love spiders, and all sorts of creepy-crawlies in general.

I'd previously posted photos of spiders you may encounter at home or outside in tropical Southeast Asia (Spiders at home), but the photo above of a centipede inspires me to post a photo of a millepede you might come across as you take a walk in the garden where my parents live:

Thyropygus sp. (Size 10 Crocs for reference)