Just watching National Geographic documentary about spiders

Caution the images on the following links may be very disturbing!

Caution the images on the following links may be very disturbing!

Caution the images on the following links may be very disturbing!

WOW thats scary, such a small creature can cause such things, and that particular spider is found 70% of all households in USA!!

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

http://www.spiderzrule.com/reclusebiteleg.htm

Spiders are creepy, I will not click on link.

DAYUM. That spider bit a huge chunk out of that guys leg. :o

when i saw the first link i tought what the hell is this.

but the second link is just damnnnnnn

DAYUM. That spider bit a huge chunk out of that guys leg. :o

SideSwipes

Imagine when you move your leg and you can actually se the tendons moving.

Ya, my old apartment had an infestation of yellow sac spiders, basically the little brother of the recluse. A bite from them does similar damage on a smaller scale. Every night I would find 1 or 2 crawling around on the walls.

[QUOTE="SideSwipes"]

DAYUM. That spider bit a huge chunk out of that guys leg. :o

tocool340

Er yeah, I was just joking.

Thank God for Canada. Where most of the truly horrifying spiders don't exist.
(As far as I know, anyway)

[spoiler] [/spoiler]

[QUOTE="SideSwipes"]

DAYUM. That spider bit a huge chunk out of that guys leg. :o

tocool340

Well, as the TC said, these spiders are in 70% of households in the USA. And yet, despite being so common, very few people end up with their flesh rotting off.

Either the vast majority of bites aren't nearly that bad, or the odds of being bitten at all are incredibly slim. Either way, I wouldn't worry. If there was cause for worry, then there'd be a LOT more people with those kinds of wounds.

[QUOTE="tocool340"][QUOTE="SideSwipes"]

DAYUM. That spider bit a huge chunk out of that guys leg. :o

MrGeezer

Well, as the TC said, these spiders are in 70% of households in the USA. And yet, despite being so common, very few people end up with their flesh rotting off.

Either the vast majority of bites aren't nearly that bad, or the odds of being bitten at all are incredibly slim. Either way, I wouldn't worry. If there was cause for worry, then there'd be a LOT more people with those kinds of wounds.

That spider is like that guy from bleach lol..

*goes to Brown Recluse wiki page*

*reads section on bite*

*clicks on Necrosis*

Jesus

(for the love of God don't click on the spoiler if you're legitimately freaked out by the spider bite)

[spoiler] [/spoiler]

Despite that percent, I've never actually seen one besides outside a barn door here in MO. Not even when I was living in Chicago I didn't see one. Hard to believe that 70% of households in the US has them. Since I've only seen one out of my lifetime, I assume they aren't very common or very good at hiding....tocool340

Yeah, I can't confirm that statistic, I was just taking his word for it.

Spiders are awesome.

Before flipping out it might do everyone good to read the venomous bite section of the Brown Recluse wiki page.

There is actually alot of controversy surrounding their bites. Only a tiny percent seem to trigger the necrosis and even then it mentions there have been studies down where they had experts positively identifying the spiders and suddenly the number of necrotic bites diminished GREATLY after excluding the questionable identifications.

Also, the species is non-agressive. One of those issues where people who get bit usually make a mistake. I do remember the common way of getting bit by this species is not checking clothing before putting it on.

You want terrifying spiders? Look no further than the Sydney Funnel Web. That thing is the thing of nightmares...

I have a huge fear of spiders, but does the link with the spider bite have a picture of a spider on it? I can't even look at a picture of a spider...

I've been bitten by a black widow before though while asleep. Not pleasant. There are tons of black widows here.

Before flipping out it might do everyone good to read the venomous bite section of the Brown Recluse wiki page.

There is actually alot of controversy surrounding their bites. Only a tiny percent seem to trigger the necrosis and even then it mentions there have been studies down where they had experts positively identifying the spiders and suddenly the number of necrotic bites diminished GREATLY after excluding the questionable identifications.

Also, the species is non-agressive. One of those issues where people who get bit usually make a mistake. I do remember the common way of getting bit by this species is not checking clothing before putting it on.

You want terrifying spiders? Look no further than the Sydney Funnel Web. That thing is the thing of nightmares...

LostProphetFLCL

yea, thats like saying "Oh youre gonna die if you get bit by a black widow"

no youre not. The bite will swell, you might feel a tiny bit off, but you wont die...unless youre really old or really young

Before flipping out it might do everyone good to read the venomous bite section of the Brown Recluse wiki page.

There is actually alot of controversy surrounding their bites. Only a tiny percent seem to trigger the necrosis and even then it mentions there have been studies down where they had experts positively identifying the spiders and suddenly the number of necrotic bites diminished GREATLY after excluding the questionable identifications.

Also, the species is non-agressive. One of those issues where people who get bit usually make a mistake. I do remember the common way of getting bit by this species is not checking clothing before putting it on.

You want terrifying spiders? Look no further than the Sydney Funnel Web. That thing is the thing of nightmares...

LostProphetFLCL

Yeah, people flip out too much about spiders. MOST spiders are extremely non-aggressive. Out of the ones that DO want to pick a fight, most of them aren't living anywhere near you. And in most of those cases, their bite isn't particularly dangerous.

Spiders are generally only fear-worthy when ALL of the following criteria are met: their venom is very potent, they are very aggressive and prone to bite, they are very common, and they live in areas where humans are common. Generally, all four of these criteria must be met in order for you to have a rational reason to piss your pants in fear. And for the VAST majority of spiders, they don't fit all four criteria. Either they're extremely venomous, but they aren't gonna be in your house. Or they are extremely venomous, but you have to try VERY hard to get them to bite you. Or they are very common and very aggressive, but being bitten isn't even an issue since their venom is weak.

But yes, the Sydney Funnel Web spider IS scary as hell. Right off the top of my head, it is the ONLY spider I can think of that is genuinely scary as ****. They are very common, very aggressive, they like to live in people's houses, and their venom WILL **** you up. Yes, those spiders are bad news. But as spiders go, they are a rarity. The VAST majority of spiders aren't anywhere near that bad. And furthermore, even in areas where the Sydney Funnelweb Spider are common, MOST people don't ever get bitten by them.

Spiders just really aren't as dangerous as they are made out to be. Sure, if it's a common spider that has a perfect home in someone's shoes or closet, then you might get an accidental bite here or there. But that doesn't happen nearly as often as you'd expect, given the huge numbers of spiders living in peoples' homes. Spider bites just aren't that common. And when they actually happen, the vast majority of bites are not medically significant. And I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if I were to learn that well over 50% of spider bites weren't surprise attacks, but rather the result of people basically ASKING TO GET BITTEN by playing around with the spider in some form or another.

On the scale of things to be terrified of, spiders are pretty low on the list. As long as you don't intentionally piss them off, and exercise basic common sense procedures, then you'll probably never get bitten at all, never mind getting bitten and then suffering a life-threatening injury.

But yeah...those sydney funnel web spiders are scary as hell.

That statistic even true?

Even so I already knew what a Recluse is capable of.

Well now...

...looks like I won't be sleeping tonight...or eating tomorrow....:|

Before flipping out it might do everyone good to read the venomous bite section of the Brown Recluse wiki page.

There is actually alot of controversy surrounding their bites. Only a tiny percent seem to trigger the necrosis and even then it mentions there have been studies down where they had experts positively identifying the spiders and suddenly the number of necrotic bites diminished GREATLY after excluding the questionable identifications.

Also, the species is non-agressive. One of those issues where people who get bit usually make a mistake. I do remember the common way of getting bit by this species is not checking clothing before putting it on.

You want terrifying spiders? Look no further than the Sydney Funnel Web. That thing is the thing of nightmares...

LostProphetFLCL

yea, thats like saying "Oh youre gonna die if you get bit by a black widow"

no youre not. The bite will swell, you might feel a tiny bit off, but you wont die...unless youre really old or really young

mrbojangles25

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you're making too light of black widows.

Yes, I was under the impression that they DO only kill a very tiny percentage of people, with most of those people being very young or very sick or very old. And that's WITHOUT modern medicine. Get bitten by a black widow, do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and seek no medical treatment whatsoever, and your chances of dying are very slim. Those chances of dying get a LOT smaller once we allow for modern medicine and the ability to go to the doctor and get treated for a black widow bite. Yes, all of that is true.

But that is NOT to say that getting bitten will just make you feel "a tiny bit off". No...from what I've seen, you absolutely should go to the doctor if you get bitten by a black widow. Yes, a bite won't kill you, but their venom actually IS some serious ****. There is a very good chance that you will feel a LOT worse than "just a tiny bit off", and a decent chance that it will be the worst pain you've ever felt in your life. Just because the bite almost certainly won't kill you doesn't mean that it's a walk in the park.

Like, I once got bitten by a pet tarantula. With pet tarantulas, there are actually a LOT of people deliberately playing around with spiders. And as I said before, deliberately playing around with spiders is what gets a HELL of a lot of people bitten. With a LOT of people around the world who deliberately decide to get pet tarantulas, it's easy to find LOTS of bite reports. And with certain species, the bite reports seem to be saying the same thing..."man, getting bitten by that species SUCKED". With tarantulas, that tends to mostly be associated with tarantulas from Africa, Asia, and Australia. The trend for many of these species seems to be the same...bites result in damage to the central nervous system, which results in at least severe pain due to involuntary total-body muscle cramps, and at worst difficulty breathing and heart palpitations. Here we are dealing with spiders that have NEVER been documented to ever result in a single human fatality, yet the almost unaminous opinion from people who have bitten is that it's a LOT worse than feeling "a tiny bit off".

And from what I've seen about black widows, their venom tends to do the same thing, just to a greater degree. Nausea, vomiting, difficulty breathing, heart spasms, and extremely excruciating full body muscle cramps. This seems to be a variation of the same type of venom...one that attacks your central nervous system and puts you in a world of hurt by causing your central nervous system to involuntarily trigger the action odf muscles all over your ****ing body. Even when not remotely life-threatening, it's generally not ****ing pleasant to have that kind of thing happenning in your body. And even in mild cases, that still seems to be quite a bit worse than "feeling a tiny bit off". Yes, the chances of being killed are extremely small. But the very NATURE of these kinds of toxins makes spiders that use these toxins not exactly something to screw around with.

Or let me put it this way...go to your pet store or go online, and buy a "Cobalt Blue Tarantula". They are very common and very cheap. So you shouldn't have much problem obtaining one. Once you have your tarantula, get it to bite you. This will also be extremely easy, as they are EXTREMELY ****ing angry. I almost want to say that they'll bite your ass just for looking at them wrong. Okay, now you've gotten bitten by your pet tarantula. It probably hurts pretty badly, your arm probably feels like it's on fire, and you're probably experiencing massive swelling in the bitten appendage. That's not the bad part. That's just the venom component which is causing you immediate pain so that you stop messing with the spider. No, wait 12-24 hours. Wait for you to start to feel better. Wait for the initial pain and swelling to start to disappear. THAT'S when you start feeling bad. THAT is when the neurotoxin kicks in and starts triggering the involuntary action of muscles all over your body. That's what also hurts a LOT more than the initial pain of getting bitten , and that's what's going to severely **** you up. Your arm swelling up and feeling like it's on fire is easy. That's a piece of cake to get through. That's just some swelling and burning. The bad part doesn't start happening until your nervous system just starts randomly telling your muscles to do **** that your muscles are not supposed to ****ing do.

And from what I hear, that's what black widow venom is like, minus the initial pain. Yeah, the initial bite doesn't hurt, because there's no component in the venom to cause instant pain. But the delayed neurotoxin is there, and it's BAD. From repeated bite reports I've heard, it goes like this...the initial bite was not the least bit painful whatsoever. Many people didn't even inititally think that they were bitten, because it didn't hurt AT ALL. Then fast forward 6-24 hours. THAT'S when the venom starts kicking in. THAT'S when it starts binding to your central nervous system and triggering all of the muscles in you body to do the stuff that it is not supposed to do. That delayed respnse is when you start being in utter agony, when your body stops working right and causes severe vomiting and excruciating pain. And in a very small percentage of cases, that's the point at which your muscular action is affected to such an extent that you can no longer breathe, and you die by suffocation. Granted, the worst case scenario only happens very rarely, but even the best case scenario is often not exactly a walk in the ****ing park. No, it won't kill you, but black widow venom is not something to scoff at, it is some serious ****. We're just lucky that you usually have to try pretty hard to actually get a black widow spider to bite you.

[QUOTE="mrbojangles25"]

yea, thats like saying "Oh youre gonna die if you get bit by a black widow"

no youre not. The bite will swell, you might feel a tiny bit off, but you wont die...unless youre really old or really young

MrGeezer

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you're making too light of black widows.

*rant, albeit an insightful rant*

youre problably right, but I've been bitten by black widows on three occasions. Granted, I was an adult male of 240-315 pounds throughout the occasions (I hear size makes a difference...that's what she said), but I did not require attention.

The first time my arm (it bit me right below the elbow) got puffy and a bit touchy. Not a big deal.

The second time it bit my bigtoe, and it felt like it was on fire and I almost went to the doctor but it swelled down after three days.

The third time it bit my calf, which was not too bad except you use your calves like all the time so it pretty much hurt any time my calf flexed a bit.

Now, do not get me wrong; I would not wish a black widow bite on my own worst enemy. Theyre painful, and to be honest theyre a bit scary...seeing the location of the bite (and the respective limb the bite was on) get all puffy and tender...its a bit unsettling.

But honestly all this hooplah is a bit unnecessary imo.

Spiders don't scare me at all but beetles do

DAYUM. That spider bit a huge chunk out of that guys leg. :o

SideSwipes

:shock:

So clicking on the link now.

those are found near here... *pulls body close to him*Link334

"Honey!"

"Yeah?"

"Where's my shotgun?" :P

[QUOTE="Link334"]those are found near here... *pulls body close to him*NiteLights

"Honey!"

"Yeah?"

"Where's my shotgun?" :P

[QUOTE="NiteLights"]

[QUOTE="Link334"]those are found near here... *pulls body close to him*Link334

"Honey!"

"Yeah?"

"Where's my shotgun?" :P

[QUOTE="Link334"][QUOTE="NiteLights"]

"Honey!"

"Yeah?"

"Where's my shotgun?" :P

NiteLights

[QUOTE="NiteLights"]

[QUOTE="Link334"] I thought I felt something crawl up my leg where my foot was asleep and kicked over a 2 liter of coke. :lol: Link334

*Waiting for spider*

The thumb bite on the same site is one that floated around a few years ago. Ewwww

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

[QUOTE="mrbojangles25"]

yea, thats like saying "Oh youre gonna die if you get bit by a black widow"

no youre not. The bite will swell, you might feel a tiny bit off, but you wont die...unless youre really old or really young

mrbojangles25

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you're making too light of black widows.

*rant, albeit an insightful rant*

youre problably right, but I've been bitten by black widows on three occasions. Granted, I was an adult male of 240-315 pounds throughout the occasions (I hear size makes a difference...that's what she said), but I did not require attention.

The first time my arm (it bit me right below the elbow) got puffy and a bit touchy. Not a big deal.

The second time it bit my bigtoe, and it felt like it was on fire and I almost went to the doctor but it swelled down after three days.

The third time it bit my calf, which was not too bad except you use your calves like all the time so it pretty much hurt any time my calf flexed a bit.

Now, do not get me wrong; I would not wish a black widow bite on my own worst enemy. Theyre painful, and to be honest theyre a bit scary...seeing the location of the bite (and the respective limb the bite was on) get all puffy and tender...its a bit unsettling.

But honestly all this hooplah is a bit unnecessary imo.

Hey, I'm not an expert on the matter either. It's quite likely that I'm still making black widow bites out to be worse than they actually are.

The thing is, I'm actually cmfortable doing that. If that long-ass rant only applies to 20% of the people who get bitten by black widows, then I still stand by what I said. Even if the majority of people who get bitten by these spiders experience only minor inconvenience, there's still that minority who is going to experience UTTER HELL. And if you don't already know how you're going to react to a black widow bite, then the best course of action is to ASSUME that you're in the minority who is going to experience sheer agony.

It's sort of like AIDS. Yes, if you have unprotected sex, you're probably not going to get AIDS, get infected by HIV, or get any other kind of awful sexually transmitted disease. That PROBABLY won't happen. But without knowing that your partner is clean, the dangers of falling into the minority are likely sufficient detterent to practice safe sex. Similarly, black widows may only cause minor discomfort for the majority of people who are bitten, but there is a significant percentage of people who DO go through utter hell after a bite. Best to just not get bitten. Similarly, the extreme necrosis exhibited by brown recluses does seem to be a minority of all bite incidents. Still, without knowing how YOU are going to react to a bite, the best thing to do is to just not get bitten. Brown recluse bites DO result in horrible situations for some healthy adults who get bitten. It largely seems to be a case-by-case basis, with only a minority of bite victims experiencing the worst effects. The thing is, until you KNOW how your body reacts to brown recluse bites, the safest thing to do is to ASSUME that a bite is going to completely **** you up.

And that doesn't mean freaking out, it just means to treat brown recluses with respect. Don't live in fear, because your chances of ever being bitten at all are already extremely slim. It's just that if you ever DO encounter a brown recluse, you're best off taking it seriously and making sure that it doesn't ****ing bite you.

[QUOTE="mrbojangles25"]

yea, thats like saying "Oh youre gonna die if you get bit by a black widow"

no youre not. The bite will swell, you might feel a tiny bit off, but you wont die...unless youre really old or really young

MrGeezer

TL;DR

You sure are writing a lot of tl;dr in this thread. Are you copying and pasting from somewhere?

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

[QUOTE="mrbojangles25"]

yea, thats like saying "Oh youre gonna die if you get bit by a black widow"

no youre not. The bite will swell, you might feel a tiny bit off, but you wont die...unless youre really old or really young

herpderp9000

TL;DR

You sure are writing a lot of tl;dr in this thread. Are you copying and pasting from somewhere?

whats that even mean, anyway?

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

[QUOTE="mrbojangles25"]

yea, thats like saying "Oh youre gonna die if you get bit by a black widow"

no youre not. The bite will swell, you might feel a tiny bit off, but you wont die...unless youre really old or really young

herpderp9000

TL;DR

You sure are writing a lot of tl;dr in this thread. Are you copying and pasting from somewhere?

It's certainly possible that I'm simply cutting and pasting from elsewhere.

On the other hand, maybe I simply really like talking about spiders.

[QUOTE="herpderp9000"]

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

TL;DR

mrbojangles25

You sure are writing a lot of tl;dr in this thread. Are you copying and pasting from somewhere?

whats that even mean, anyway?

TL,DR means "too long, didn't read."

Basically, he's saying that he lacked either the attention span or interest to read what I typed, and therefore came to the conclusion that I lacked either the attention span or interest to type what I typed.

The thumb bite on the same site is one that floated around a few years ago. Ewwww

poptart

(Looks at bite) Well that's not so bad. (Checks bite a couple of days later) Hmm it hasn't gotten worse, it might heal up pretty good. (Checks again) Oh man it's not lookin so good. (Checks a couple of days later) DEAR GOD I CAN SEE INSIDE MYSELF!

[QUOTE="herpderp9000"]

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

TL;DR

You sure are writing a lot of tl;dr in this thread. Are you copying and pasting from somewhere?

whats that even mean, anyway?

I allow myself to be bitten by a Sydney funnel spider at least once a week to keep me on my toes.

Well now...

...looks like I won't be sleeping tonight...or eating tomorrow....:|

J-Man725

Not even a little snack?

Aww Aww Aww

I was reading this on a laptop in bed... with the covers off now