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submitted 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) by amarynthia@sh.itjust.works to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
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[-] Zarobi@aussie.zone 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

We keep the big hideous ones as pets to hunt the small deadly ones. Yes really.

Tap for Spider lore

Huntsman's are the best. Even if they do bite you, it'll just make you feel dizzy and sleepy for a while, I've experienced this first hand. Do not Google a photo of social huntsman spiders though, they are ugly motherfuckers. They're gigantic and one of the biggest spiders in the world. I can't tolerate them indoors because they just make me sick to look at. Maybe I'm being dramatic. These guys will roam around and ruthlessly hunt down the deadly spiders, hence the name. But also you might have a midnight encounter when getting a glass of water. They are one of the only spiders that are social and understand group dynamics. They have families and share food. They have really good eyes for a spider, and will actually watch you as you retreat carefully. I hate how smart they are. Creepy fuckers. Wolf spiders are similar but less ugly and are solitary.

Daddy long legs (also known as cellar spiders, very different from the American daddy long legs) are also great at killing other spiders and cannot physically penetrate human skin with their fangs, making them completely harmless. They just chill in the corners of your house and you hardly notice them. Love these guys.

But yeah we try not to kill the "good spiders", because if you completely clean house, you'll get the "bad spiders". Even redbacks to an extent, I leave them alone if they're in the shed. They can kill almost everything and punch way above their weight class. I've seen them take out centipedes, giant cockroaches, all sorts. I relocate spiders if they're a problem like somewhere kids might get into, but mostly leave them be. Think of it like you have a mutual agreement with the barbarians to guard your walls, but they will try and sneak in sometimes.

Have you ever seen the movie Predator? That scene where he smacks the shoe before putting it on and a spider comes out? Do that every time. And don't leave laundry or towels lying on the floor. Shake out your linens. Don't trust gloves you've stored outside. Stuff like that. Then you should be fine. I live in South Australia so we don't have the deadly kind of funnel web, so I don't really worry about it that much. We do have other dangerous spiders but they tend to not live indoors thankfully. I may be desensitised to it though. I've been "blessed" with a biological signature that spiders and other insects find interesting, so I've been bitten hundreds of times in my life. One time I ended up with a really bad infection but some antibiotics sorted that out. I've heard that white tail spiders aren't actually dangerous and it's a myth... but that was the only one that got really badly infected, so I'm not so sure.

So yeah mostly we just don't encounter the dangerous spiders that often because we have a barrier ecosystem of less lethal spiders.

More reading: https://birdwatchinghq.com/spiders-of-south-australia/

Don't Americans have black widow spiders or something that are equally dangerous? To me this all seems fairly routine, surely other places in the world also have dangerous spiders in them? Everyone here is a bit of an expert in spiders out of necessity. I'm pretty sure it's taught in school how to recognise the dangerous spiders and snakes.

[-] dkppunk@piefed.social 4 points 6 hours ago

Black widows get a really bad wrap. Everyone is very afraid they are going to die from a bite, but the last documented death from a black widow spider was in the 1980s. I live in an area that has a lot of black and brown widows. The black widows are almost never seen and are not really a problem unless the person bitten is very young, very old, or very sick. I see a lot of brown widows, but their bite is not considered as dangerous. We also get a lot of false black widows, which are also super cool!

Black widow webs are pretty cool, you can hear the tearing sound when they break because the webbing so strong. I love finding those gorgeous little ladies with their bright red butt spots!

[-] Zarobi@aussie.zone 1 points 6 hours ago

Sounds very similar to our redback spiders then! I always thought they were beautiful… where I used to live my neighbour had a walk in bird house thing (is aviary the word?) where there was this absolute unit of a redback. Bigger than a golf ball, its web was a third of the entire bird house. Absolutely terrifying and stunning at the same time. I saw it actually eating small birds like finches occasionally which is just nuts. We used to catch bugs and throw them into the web and watch the spider go for it. Wouldn't want a bite from that lady though!

[-] dkppunk@piefed.social 3 points 6 hours ago

Oh that sounds awesome! I love giant spiders and watching them eat can be so much fun!

I had a green lynx spider in my backyard last summer. She was really good at keeping pests off of my cucumber plants. I had zero aphid issues when she was around. I got to watch her eat her mate and make 2 egg sacs but only one was viable. It was so fun to see her build and fill one of the sacs.

I also had a praying mantis on my luffa plant. I would find inchworms eating the leaves and move them closer to the mantis. It was a lot of fun watching the attack and eating, when it would take the first bite, the inchworm juice would pop out and get all over the mantis face. It was pretty cute. I took soooo many pictures and videos of my spider and insect friends.

[-] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 3 points 7 hours ago

Black widows aren't that common. At least in my area. Maybe further south. It seems the further south you go the bigger the insects get and the more things there are that want to kill you.

Brown recluses are a bigger problem, but they avoid places with much foot traffic. I'm always paranoid cause there are a lot of lookalikes, but their bite isn't an immediate death sentence. It'll give you necrotizing fasciitis, which is a slower and more painful process and could eventually result in death but by that time it's usually obvious there's a problem and you need to go to the hospital. Still a cosmic horror though. But the bites aren't too common.

I've literally never seen a black widow in person though

[-] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

We have a lot of black widows here in Central California. They avoid people and the only real danger is if you disturb one that's hiding in some dark place. Even then, bites are rare.

this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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