Spiders. Some like them. Some tolerate them. Some hate them. I am hear to spread a bit of knowledge about them, and how we absolutely need them. Without them, we'd starve and be overrun by much more terrible creatures. Personally, I grew up with a healthy fear of them. And I have possibly killed hundreds in my lifetime. Not really knowing their significance in the Eco-system. Not being aware of the job they were doing for my family, let alone the whole planet. As I got older I decided I want to desensitize myself of them and eliminate my fear, if only to properly deal with them in situations where I need to be brave where I would usually be on a chair.
Now I don't see myself getting a tarantula as a pet anytime soon. But I am learning to do the proper thing(not killing them to start) in most situations when I come across one in my home or personal space.
Why we are scared of them? For the most part, is is a cultural thing. Especially in America. We make films that prey on our ignorance of everything. It's literally the fear of the unknown. And that unknown fear can cause harm, without addressing it. We have tons of movies about spiders of all kinds of sizes, and shapes. Making them blood thirsty monsters that go out their way to terrorize and devour all that comes before them, when that is frankly untrue. And then there are the Wives' Tales. Our relatives or friends telling us all kinds of horror stories. The new Wives' Tales are creepy-pasta on the web, or the few times something bad has happened, and it's passed around for a decade as if it's new or another case. We take all these false notions and ignorance out on species that are not only harmless to us, but are keeping real crap at bay for us.
Antilles Pinktoe aka Versicolor
Some species are beautiful and kept as pets. Especially some tarantula species. Most tarantulas are docile, and even tolerate being handled.
Deal with the phobia. First, forget everything you thought you knew about spiders. It's probably wrong. The first step to overcoming something is to get familiar with it. Like if you wanted to skydive, you would take classes about it. So one way to is utilize the web (pun intended) and get some information on these guys. There are numerous resources out there, some of which I will link down below. Other methods is to gain confidence and try to be comfortable with them when you see them. Stare at some images on the net. Watch some videos (documentaries are great for this). Check out your local pet shops and take a look at them in person. And when you get really comfortable, try holding a non-venomous spider. Eventually, it will be like any other creature you usually don't fear, to you. Problem solved!
~ Rawr!
Why we need them. Individual spiders eat up to 2,000 insects a year. And in some cases other (sometimes more dangerous) spiders. Let's say there are maybe 5 spiders around your home that you are aware of. If you kill them that's 10,000 extra mosquitoes, flies, roaches, earwigs, bees and wasps, possible venomous spiders, lizards, and even some small rodents that are now all over your yard and in and around your home, instead. Sometimes you have to pick your poison, and I'd much rather have the 5 spiders than 10,000 other crazy things, personally.
The real enemies, and a world without spiders. As I stated prior, without spiders we would be overrun with tons and tons of other things that are far worse than spiders. Most spiders feed exclusively on meat. Specifically the meat of insects. They don't feed on vegetation, pets, or humans. However what they do eat, does. Flies, termites, and other infestation famous animals would eat all of our crops thus killing our food supply, and then us. Mosquitoes would be in much more massive numbers and kill more than the 1,000,000,000 (one million) people a year they already do. Animals like small lizards and birds would lose a huge food source in spiders, too. Some spiders breed in massive numbers, but in a lot of cases only a small number of them actually survive due to the already harsh conditions in which they live now. With crops destroyed, tons of predatory animals that help balance nature like spiders do, and the population decimated, we would pretty much be thrown into some post-apocalyptic Fist of the North Star/Mad Max world type shit. I'm not even joking. And I don't want that. Not unless I learned the secrets of Hokuto Shinken.
Also, we would have a world without him;
And I don't want that, and neither do you.
Know what is in your region, and how to live with them. There are almost 45,000 species of spiders. There are spiders in every place on Earth, minus the South Pole. It is important when trying to properly understand spiders to know what particular species actually live near you. There are tools that can help. Some of which are below. For instance I live in Northern Alabama, in the United States. The most dangerous spiders here (which actually are some of the most dangerous in the world) are the Brown Recluse, and the Black Widow spider. While they are here, and if you look hard enough you will spot them, they are shy in nature and typically try and stay out of sight (they are still dangerous, and need to be treated with caution and respect). They will not build their nests or cast large webs over your front door. There are many others that resemble those two, and commonly get The Boot(tm) because they were confused with the dangerous ones.
We have Wolf Spiders here as well, which just by the name alone scares a lot of people. They are pretty harmless to us, and don't carry venom harmful to us. They are however pretty large on a lot of occasions. These are the guys that are capable of controlling the more dangerous species of spiders numbers. They easily handle the smaller Widow and Recluse. So even though they look scarier, don't kill them! Unless you want to deal with the other guys.
Most spiders just want to be left alone. Majority just live the life of a wandering samurai. No family, no kids. Just eating to live.
Things you can do to lessen your encounters with them (at least within your home). Keep a clean house. Seriously, the less places any creature has to hide and get comfortable in, the better. Wash your damn clothes and keep them off the ground, college peeps! Vacuum that rug, and keep food put away. Dishes clean. It will help a great deal. A good method is to try and limit how many ways they can get in. Some come right through the front door. Get a stopper for the underside of the doors to keep them from being able to crawl under them. More methods include repellants. Vinegar works well. Same for Citrus and peppermint based products. There are also plants they deter spiders that can be planted around your home. Just remember that too much will keep them away, but invite others.
Things happen. The sad thing is, that there are instances of dangerous spiders getting out of control or harming us. It does happens, and it's very unfortunate. I am not gonna lie to you and say spiders never hurt anyone, or they are harmless. That's not true at all. These creatures are warriors. Natural born killers. And some are equipped with the tools to slow us down, or completely stop us dead in our tracks. It is nature, after all. When I was younger I was bit by a spider and apparently had a bad reaction from them. It wasn't a very venomous one, and I was not able to identify it. I was fortunate that it wasn't one that could cause bad physical damage like a Recluse, but those things happen. The fortunate thing is that it doesn't happen often.
In closing, as I learn more about them, the cooler they become. I'm becoming fascinated by all the things they do. All the ways they hunt. There is a spider for everything. Ever heard of the Diving-bell spider? Look them up. Incredible stuff. Even some of the most dangerous species have not been able to down anyone in the past 20 years, due to modern medicine keeping us all safe. Arguably the most dangerous spider in the world, the Sydney Funnel-web spider, has a powerful anti-venom available thanks to scientist who literally take these guys, and milk their fangs almost 100 times for just 1 vile. That 1 vile is the key to surviving a bite, and no deaths have been attributed to these spider since 1981. Spider research is leading to all types of incredibly userful things for humans too. Like medicines, and their silk is stronger than Kevlar and most metals. I'm hoping that this long thread can help even a little with my fellow gaffers and their own battles with spiders.
~ Don't hurt me mister!
RESOURCES
http://www.spiders.us/ - A handy tool that is continuously updated to identify all spider types by region. USA Focused.
http://www.termite.com/spiders/ - Similar to the above, with a focus on which ones are dangerous to man.
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Spider-Repellent-at-Home - Homemade Spider repellants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider
http://www.buzzfeed.com/sararubin/what-would-happen-if-all-the-spiders-disappeared - Quick video on some of what I spoke of in this post.
Creatures scarier than spiders
Venomous spiders
Super Spider Documentary
