Reptile & Amphibian Forums

...what is it???

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I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

- Jack Handey

some species of Windscorpion
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PHWyvern

They are all over the place in the So Cal deserts.

--Robert

Are they dangerous?
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I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

- Jack Handey

No, but I wouldn't want to get bit. I assume it would not be fun.

--Robert

Yes, a solphugid spider no doubt about it - their bite is nasty, as they secrete a nerve numbing fluid so you do not know you're being eaten! They masticate and suck fluids from their prey simutaneously!! A nefarious arachnid = a species indicator for true desert habitats.

I wrote a natural history article on solphugid spiders that has good natural history about them published:

Reptile & Amphibia Hobbyist, 2001. Solphugids: better than Science Fiction. July, 6(11):60-64.

A wonderful and amazing species!
mbayless

Great--I was paranoid with all the black widows everywhere--now I have that to think about too.

Thanks for the info.

Sam
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I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

- Jack Handey

>>Great--I was paranoid with all the black widows everywhere--now I have that to think about too.
>>
>>Thanks for the info.
>>

Now, what is wrong with black widows?

Basically, you leave them alone, they leave you alone. Just use some caution and look carefully prior to moving wood or other items that have been sitting for a while outdoors or in garages, crawlspaces, etc. Their webs are pretty easy to identify by sight and by touch once you have played with them a bit.

A wild female with egg sac I spotted on the side of a trail at work.

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Here is a topside look of the female spider:

Here is the egg sac the day it hatched:

And, here is one of the spiderlings at 35 days old:

I have another egg sac from the same female waiting to hatch in a week or so. Yes, I am weird as I like raising widows.
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PHWyvern

What do you do with the widows when they near adulthood? Please don't tell me you let them go in the wild! :0 Spiders and snakes give me the chills.

Thanks for the pics--that's interesting. I see those egg sacs all over the place on our property, however, I step on them whenever I have the opportunity.
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I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

- Jack Handey

>>What do you do with the widows when they near adulthood? Please don't tell me you let them go in the wild! :0 Spiders and snakes give me the chills.
>>

I keep them. raising babies is best accomplished with a bit of darwinism involved - feed them a lot of food but also allow them the chance to pick off the weaker siblings over a period of time. I place the babies in a large container and then let them whittle themselves down to about a dozen before separating them into individual enclosures.
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PHWyvern

hello Jack, I would like to tell you a story abour widows. When I first built my monitor building, it was invaded by widows. Heat, moisture, lots of loose crickets and WAM, tens of thousands of widows, in fact, millions and millions of them. So many they would hatch, go to lites and rain down, by the thousands. I would swipe the lites with a broom and smash it on the floor and leave a wet spot, two feet wide.

But alas, I sold some lizard bins to a friend in SoCal(ron huffacker) and got them back. Also a different kind of spider came back with them. A longlegged, smallish spider. Well, low and behold, those small spiders ate the widows and now no more widows, just a few of those long legged types. Those do not breed in large numbers and do not go into monitor cages. Which means, if they do the monitors eat them. I will say, monitors will not eat widows. But the widows do not harm the monitors either. So now, the only place the widows can live are in the monitor cages. But here they are easy to control, as they eat eachother too. So one per cage is easy to eliminate. Don't look up, it could be raining spiders, hahahahahahahaha We have lots of really big sunspiders too, turtles love them. FR

I was under the impression that sun spiders had no venom and used their large mandibles to subdue their prey. I read many websites about them and, any that appeared to have any fact on them agreed, claims of their venom are nothing more than urban legend.

Steve

Solphudiga do not have a venom persay, although in some snakes it does work that way, it is a way for them to "eat you alive" for which live prey is what they sustain themselves upon - acquisition of fluids is vital to all desert dwelling creatures.
It is not a venom, and its bite is nasty in larger specimens.
mbayless

>>They are all over the place in the So Cal deserts.
>>
>>--Robert

windscorpion / solfugid / sun spider... different words that all mean the same thing. Since there are about a hundred or so different species in North America, I didn't want to even attempt to go further than a common/generic name.
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PHWyvern