I Hate Spiders!!!! ...especially poisonous ones!!

                   We have all probably heard of or have seen spiders before. Whether in your house, the forest , in a science center, photos ,or a spider on you biting you, people know what spiders are. The fear of spiders is called Arachnophobia. It is estimated that at least 50% of women and only about 18% of men have arachnophobia. It seems logical because women usually will ask men to kill spiders and insects ,no matter how big or minuscule. People always mistake spiders as insects,but spiders are not insects at all. They are called arachnids. That is why the fear of spiders is called arachnophobia. The systems of arachnophobia at the sight or sometimes even the mere thought of a spider are excessive sweating , clamminess ,rapid breathing ,nausea ,dizziness,and a rapid heartbeat.

                  If a person isn't scared of spiders at all,then maybe the thought of having a spider bite you (especially a poisonous spider) might at least have you checking your surroundings a little bit more carefully than you already do. I recently wanted to research Poisonous Floridian Spiders and my research led me to discover that there are at least 5 species of venomous spiders living in Florida: the southern black widow ,the northern black widow, the red widow, the brown widow,and the last one that can sometimes be harder to identify than the widow spiders is the brown recluse. I honestly believe that I am one of the 50% of women that have Arachnophobia because while researching these spiders , just looking at the pictures of these spiders makes me cringe and look carefully around my house for any arachnids.

southern black widow

                                                                           



norther n black widow

                                                            

 

                       


                      red widow

 





brown widow



                        

       The 4 species of widow spiders look alike in body shape. All are about 1/2" long with legs extended.Their life cycle is also similar.The female lays about 250 eggs in a pear-shaped egg sac that is about 1/2" to 5/8" in diameter.The eggs hatch in 20 days.In Florida,all of the widows breed year-round except the northern black widow.Anyone bitten by a spider should preserve it in rubbing alcohol for positive identification.Most spider bites are not considered dangerous,but if you suspect that one of the recluse or widow spiders bit you or someone ,you need to get medical attention IMMEDIATELY!

Brown Recluse Spider

Do you wonder why I decided to "randomly" research Poisonous Floridian Spiders? Well,it wasn't randomly at all.Over the summer,one of my friends,named Naomi Baumbach,went on a little nature walk with her boyfriend and when she first came home ,she felt normal,but the next morning she noticed either 2 or 3 huge bites on her legs.She went to church in the morning,then immediately went to the doctor to try to figure out what had happened to her legs. She soon discovered that they were bites from a poisonous spider.

This is what her spider bites looked like.

The doctor wasn't sure what spider had bite her and some of the things that she researched didn't give her a straight answer.So,for a while after she had received a shot from the doctor to take away the venom from her bloodstream,everything was okay and nobody worried about spiders..................UNTIL,one day Naomi had 2 friends over at her house,one of them being me,and we were all awake at night talking in the guest bedroom AND THERE IT WAS. A huge spider on the wall that looked alot like the brown recluse spider.Luckily ,her other friend that was there killed it with a paper towel.All of us freaked out for a while,but then we calmed down a little bit  because we thought that that was the last spider that we would see for a long time. We were so wrong.
Only a week after that ,I went to Naomi's house and we didn't think that much about spiders except the fact that we looked everywhere that we set foot around the house in case there were more.After a while at her house,I went in her mom's car where Naomi's mom drove ,Naomi was in the front seat next to her mom,and I was in the backseat.They were driving me home.Suddenly,when Naomi was inside the car(we were all inside the car) she sees a SPIDER crawling all around the car.Not just any spider ,but a spider that looked exactly like the one that we found in her house,like the spider's family member or something, and we were all scared to death.Then it was gone and we thought that maybe it's not on the car anymore since the car is moving(because we're driving back to my house).Then on one of the car's windows WE SEE THIS!!

Time for us to panic?? ABSOLUTELY! Naomi and I did NOT want to get out of that car because the spider was outside of the car.Not to mention that it was Sunday,August 19,2012 and the first day of my Senior year was the day after on the 20th. I didn't want to get bitten by a poisonous spider and die the day before I start my last year of high school. I'm even trying to get perfect attendance this year and that spider just might ruin it.Luckily,it was raining outside and we were hoping that the spider would be swept away by the rain.When I got home, I jumped out of that car and looked all around the car for the spider. I didn't see anything.I went home and started researching poisonous spiders from Florida.The more I researched,the more it seemed that it was the brown recluse that had been tormenting us for several weeks. At least everything that Naomi had told me about the spider and how she got bitten matched the brown recluse. I'm NOT 100% sure,but I know that it has the same characteristics and features of the brown recluse,so if it isn't ,then it must be related somehow to it. Brown recluse bites are not felt right away.They come from forests and they cling onto your clothes and you cannot feel the spider on you even after you get home.Brown recluses are common house spiders and unfortunately after you see one there is at least one or more spider family members traveling with them.If the bite is poisonous ,you should really go to the doctor as soon as possible, because the doctors told my friend that if she had waited too long to go to the doctor, that the venom would go through her bloodstream and her veins until the poison reached her heart.
I have never been so scared of spiders in my whole life!!My fear of spiders has increased by like 90%!!!! I personally think that spiders are EVIL,especially after what they did to Naomi and to anyone else that has gotten bitten by poisonous spiders like my uncle. I Hate regular spiders and Especially Poisonous ones!!!! The most ironic thing about my hatred of spiders,is that even though I hate spiders, I LOVE SPIDERMAN!!!! <3 He is more HUMAN than spider ,anyway.   :)