He was hanging in a web spun between the handrails on our deck, an enormous guest whose body was probably two inches long, the span of his legs much longer still. He was impressive size, impressive color — and probably impressive eater as well. I didn’t know what kind of spider it was; I doubted it was dangerous, for only black widows and brown recluses are spiders of venomous note around here, and this fellow clearly wasn’t either. Still, a bite would probably be painful, especially for a child. So I did the logical: I gently knocked the web down, then pushed it off the deck.
Will he return tomorrow?
I heard on Michael Feldman’s “What Do You Know” (NPR, this past Saturday), that spiders basically do not bite. I did not believe it, so I looked it up. I found this — possibly interesting reading to a worried father! :)
http://arthropodecology.com/2012/02/15/spiders-do-not-bite/
It’s an odd thing: it makes perfect sense, but it flies in the face of all we’ve ever heard or read. The brown recluse article was particularly interesting. So what I’m wondering is why any and all web medical resources, from Web MD down, have information about spider bites. If it’s a complete myth, how is it sustained? And regarding the brown recluse myth, what are all those horrific pictures you can find on Google when you search “brown recluse bite”?
As I’m neither an arachnologist nor a doctor, and since I’m not going to take the time to delve into it any further, I guess I’ll never know.