Every fall the spiders come out in force around here, especially when there is an Indian summer.
The first specimen is a fishing spider I found on the side of an outhouse at a forest preserve. Those nasty outhouses attract flies and other insects and spiders nab them.
When it saw me it ran into its corner for safety. I believe this is a dark fishing spider aka Dolomedes tenebrosus.
My wife loves to catch large spiders lol. So I nudged it out of its hiding space and she cornered it.
It became docile after a while and was easy to handle. Poor thing got abducted by humans.
I prefer to catch jumping spiders. I usually find a few large ones in fall that sometimes I keep over the winter as a pet. This ended up getting the best of me by ricocheting around in my hand and jumping off into the weeds. Perhaps I'll find one on my condo window again to bring in out of the cold.
I found a tiny millipede while looking around some dead wood for mushrooms. These guys used to flood my old ground level apartment under the door during the fall. It seemed like they considered my apartment a sarcophagus as they would all just barely get in under the door and die.
Here is a fat garden spider hanging around at night. I almost ran into it with my face lol.
I tapped it lightly and it ran up onto the sign where it fastened its web. These are good garden pets to have since they eat flies. I could use a few of these on my balcony to make sure flies don't ever get into my place... But the only problem would be running into their webs every time I go out to water the plants.
Meanwhile in Chicago at work I found the typical argiopes on the water taxi. They cover the boats and as the boat drives along the river their webs catch various flies. Fortunately most passengers don't notice them as they would freak out.
They mostly hang out in the overhead beams of the boat and most people are looking down at their phones. If only they knew spiders were above them lol.
Meanwhile back at home my pet Chilean rose is a perfect Halloween decoration. I just need to switch out her coconut for a skull and it would be a perfect set up.
That's all for now, thanks for looking, keep an eye out for spiders above.
This is cool mate, I don't dare to do something like this, even though I know it's not venomous.
They can give a powerful bite, but if you don't grab them and just let them crawl on you they won't bite. They are used to only biting small insects so a large hand seems like a tree or something to crawl on rather than bite.
Yeah, but if I'm still amused, Hahaha.
I already got the shivers reading this post! 😄
I do NOT want to visit you! 😆
The spiders are very friendly lol.
Happy almost Halloween 🕷️ Kudos to your wife for her spider catching savvy. I always like the bright colors on the jumping spiders but you pet is the best looking spider of them all 🙂
She is good at catching the big ones, I only feel comfortable with medium to small sized spider lol.
Awesome, we have the same pets! My homestead is crawling with these exact same fishing spiders. How long have you had that beautiful Chilean rose? I've had mine for 22 years.
The fishing spider are pretty cool, you can see their eyes glowing at night with a flashlight. My Chilean rose is about 9 yrs old, hopefully she lives as long as yours. I've heard of them making to 30 yrs.
Camera flash makes eyes glow too:
Its power level is over 9000!