That little fella needs a name Daniel. He does look like a jumping spider to me as well. My book says he is called the "Daring" or "Bold" jumping spider and he loves to eat wee bugs. Pretty cute. I like his little hairs sticking up. Looks like me in the morning. In the winter months I'm pretty ruthless with indoor spiders ( they would die anyhow if I kicked them outside). In the summer I show them the world of the great outdoors. During the winter they come in on the firewood to the master bedroom in the loft, and the other fire in the mud room. There is usually only two kinds in the house during the winter, one is bulbus and black but very wee, and the other is brown and hairy - also small. I think is called a "Agressive Common House Spider" - that only shows "agression" ( meaning it will bite) when threatened or pressed against skin. ( They like me.....like really really like me. They think I'm tasty) Hubby won't get a bite, and I'll have a row of 11 bites ( usually up my back) where they must have been trying to escape my rollover and their certain death by crushing. Sometimes I feel like a cob of corn. Like you Daniel, I can get cellulitis so it's about a week of topical steroids and benadryl cream - and then sometimes anitbiotics. It happens about three times a year. The joy of a wood stove in the bedroom My favourite here in the summer is the Wolf Spider. Much like Pac mentioned of her large spider they are huge and catch large flies that like to eat me. They are smart too. If I throw something into the web that's not a fly, they run down and take it out. But only one or two times. Then they ignore me. Sometime during the night they kick out of their web whatever it was I put in there. They have crazy good vision and I swear they recognize me, so the fun at teasing them is short lived. We have a few varieties of big Orb Spiders, mostly the Shamrock Orb. They build tight sticky webs and also like to eat the bugs that like to eat me, but the smaller ones. One was on the bumper of our trailer when we went camping. He drove the four hours to the Alpine, hung out for a week, then drove the four hours back. He kept his web for the rest of the summer. One tough Homey.
WARNING: Before enlarging the pic below . Please be aware that the pic is a huge black widow spider’s web trap protecting its nest and gathering visitors. I hope I’m not offending anyone by posting a very big scary web in my garage last summer. The first one I have ever seen in the garage. Never seen anything like it…Geez I thought a huge funnel web was creepy last year but this pic is so much more freaky, creepy and scream worthy..no Joke… Just imagine this whopper of a nest was constantly positioned by my head as I got into the vehicle next to the truck inside the garage. It was a black widow spider nest. I did finally only manage to see it one day when the sun shined in the west window in late afternoon and lit the web up . I nearly flipped out, wondering how long it was in that spot …After a few minutes of gathering my wits and arguing with myself it’s just a black widow while experiencing a mild panic attack …I bolted out of there after spraying the web with spider poison. Then ran out of the garage like a wack-a-doodle as far away as possible . Went inside and locked the door. Like really that widow is coming inside to get me… “No” , but for some odd reason locking the door I felt safe. That time of year widows are dangerous and very aggressive and I could see it popping in and out of a hole in a storage box positioned up in the rafters above the truck. I didn’t stick around to get a pic of the widow. It was threatening enough just knowing it was watching every move I made. The web pictured on the truck roof was 5’ wide by 4’ high, up into a storage container. I luckily had a spider spray that sprayed 6’-8’ ahead of me just waiting for that moment . And they say Oregon doesn’t have black widows because it’s too wet. Mmmm. PS: Enlarge at your own risk…
Mel did u take a peek.. scary uh? No bears here … thank goodness but I had a bull in heat in my pasture once.. very scary ….my horses would run up and kick at him. Cause… stupid me went up to a bull snorting and hooves in gear with a bucket of oates and rope to get him back home. Yikes… Never approach a bull … Ever…
