Comments on: Male funnel-web spider

By: kayla

kayla — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:26:48 +0000

this really helped me alot with spiders i had no clue on wat was wat really no idear u guys helped me alot n i no wat to do now if i get bitten thanks you

By: jimmy

jimmy — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:14:12 +0000

i love spides and snakes

By: Tim Eisele

Tim Eisele — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:38:35 +0000

Thanks for the information about (a) how to get bitten by a spider, and (b) what it’s like. Maybe I should start a separate page with descriptions of positively identified bites, with descriptions about what they are actually like (no “I think it was a spider, but I didn’t see it bite me” cases, though)

By: Tim C

Tim C — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:56:41 +0000

I’ve had confirmed bites by orb weavers (commonly known as garden or cross spiders, of the genus araneus), entirely of my own fault. I was carrying her home in my closed hand (a large mature female), thinking that she wouldn’t bite. But she did. It was more of a pinch than anything, so I picked her up and continued home. Twice more she bit me. When I got home, it swelled up much like a mosquito bite would, and all sign of the infliction disappeared within a few days.

Since then, I’ve picked up many more a spider, but never with a closed hand. I’m obviously more careful around those whose fangs I can clearly see (such as the funnel weavers).

I’ve never experienced or heard any confirmed story of a spider biting somebody unprovoked, but that doesn’t stop people from claiming that they would.

Neat theory about the presense of venomous creatures in tropical climates…I’ve never heard that before, but it makes sense.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:06:48 +0000

Excellent article, Tim. And I just wanted to write to express my amazement - I had no idea a platypus was venomous! That’s scarier to me than any venomous spider (probably because I also live in Michigan). Makes you wonder why they even made the movie “Arachnophobia”. I think “Ornithorhynchophobia” would’ve made a far better movie (though with an admittedly less impressive ad campaign).

For those interested, Wikipedia also has more info and examples of venomous animals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venomous_mammals

By: Tim Eisele

Tim Eisele — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 02:21:44 +0000

Good, good, more data! The more information we can get about what actual, confirmed spider bites really look and feel like, the better! Maybe it will help keep people from freaking out over things like boils. Was this spider in downstate Michigan, or up here in the UP?

By: Jenn

Jenn — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 02:18:47 +0000

I had a confirmed spider bite. Brown, but probably not a Recluse. I was poking around in the glove box of a car that had been in the barn for 8 months, and felt a hot -poke-. Pulled my hand back, and there was a brown spider vamoosing across my hand. I got a large welt, with a tail following the blood flow. It hurt a lot for a couple of days, but then the welt went away, although the bite wound remained for a month or so.