Any amateur arachnologists around here?

[MX-5EE]

+1!

BTW, I think all spiders are poisonous, but arond here, only the Black Widow or Brown Recluse will cause you much trouble if bitten.

Very true, I meant those spiders with enough toxicity to harm an average adult human. I am sure more spiders could be considered deadly if the victim of the bite were young, or sick, or allergic.

I love spiders, but black widows are the one variety that give me the creeps! I have seen two my whole life. One when I was about 7 outside a neighbor's house, and the second was in the crack of one of a wooden terracing beam that was stuck in the ground vertically. Both times, they spooked me and I got a chill down my back. I guess the markings really work :)

[joe.MIATA]

My brown recluse bite (10 yrs ago) tore me up for about a month. A couple days after the bite, i went to the doctor- with the dead spider. 'Oh yea- How do you feel?'....' not good at all.'

I'll take the sting of a scorpion (last month) anyday.

Currently, I find about 1 brown recluse per month where I live. And I have also a single black widow. All are immediately flattened.

[Titus]

I see black widows pretty frequently... probably 3 or 4 in the 3 years I've been in Texas, and just as often back in CA. Not sure what a brown recluse looks like, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some of them hanging around in my back yard.

[Billy Blaze]

We have this long lane covered with trees on all sides that goes for a couple hundred yards. (you've driven it Billy)
A few years ago me and a couple of buddies were walking down this lane late at night to lock the gate on the main road. As we trudged through the darkness, Cory was telling us this story about how he and his dad used to go to rattlesnake roundups and catch them barehanded, blah blah blah real macho stuff.
All of a sudden he screams like a girl "Spiders spiders spiders!!!" and starts slapping himself so hard he slapped his glasses off his face into the darkness. He'd walked into one of those webs these spiders like to build at night. You'd a thought he walked into one of those giant spider webs off an old Tarzan movie.
It was so so so funny, especially taken out of the context of bragging about snake handling and all...
We found his glasses the next morning about twenty feet away from where he slapped himself.

Makes me smile even now.

that is funny!
I don't care for spiders but dont kill them unless I know they are black or brown widows and or brown recluse.
I would have probably acted like your friend, I cant stand spiders on me, but am pretty passive about snakes...but then again I saw and killed a lot of the in La. as a kid.

[MadMonkey]

Spiders rock; I don't kill them unless they're dangerous. If they chase me, I just run screaming like a little girl.

[channelmaniac]

Brown Recluse spiders hide in dark corners, under furniture, and other hidden places INSIDE your house.

You're much more likely to find them when you move things around in your closet than when you are out in the yard.

[Radio-Active]

Not sure what a brown recluse looks like, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some of them hanging around in my back yard.

A brown recluse(A.K.A. Fiddle Back) looks like it has a fiddle for the body and walks kinda like a crab. I was bit by one back about 10 years ago and had a dead spot on my skin that kept oosing for about 2 months before starting to heal and flaked off for another 3 months. I thought it was going to leave me with a permanent scar, but it disapeared after a couple of years.

Linkie