I like spiders

Life

By Symon ⋅ September 30, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

NZ Black Tunnelweb Spider

I moved an old railway sleeper yesterday and found (to my delight) a Brown Vagrant Spider. I was rather enjoying handling it when I realised that I’m not that scared of spiders anymore. Actually, it is almost a miracle, becasue I am becoming rather fond of them now.

NZ Brown Vagrant Spider

Three months ago, I had a deep fear of spiders. Now, I have a healthy respect, and fascination for them (from fiends to friends in 3 months… not bad). My secret? I forced myself to handle them, until fear gave way to common sense. Simple (but not easy).

I could have easily pushed it too far though (as some of you thought I did with the White-tail). The other day I found a huge Tunnelweb spider (about 25% bigger than the Vagrant shown in photo above) and was about to handle it, but chickened out. Was a good thing that I did, because I recieved a reply from a NZ spider expert about them which said…

Hi Symon. Tunnelweb spiders are not very social and often attack rather than run away and they hit hard using their whole body to sink their 5mm fangs into you so we recommend you DON’T HANDLE them. I tried to move our Tunnelweb with a knitting needle, over to the other side of her enclosure, she viciously attacked it I could feel and hear her hitting the knitting needle each time she attacked I definitely won’t be hand feeding her.

You can read about why I became scared of spiders, and my decision to own that fear here. You can read about my encounter with the small, but dangerous Whitetail here.

Discussion

9 Responses to “I like spiders”

And you can read about my fear of husbands with big black spiders “here”.

Posted by kristy | September 30, 2008, 8:04 pm

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And you can read about my fear of husbands ‘here’.

Posted by Neen | September 30, 2008, 9:36 pm

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Lol @ kristy and nina! haha.

So, does this mean you’re going to try handling an anaconda next??

Posted by Jon Dylan | October 1, 2008, 10:02 am

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and you can read about my fear of hydrangeas ‘here’

Posted by Lillian Gish | October 1, 2008, 10:47 am

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That’s the approach i tried. I freak out at crawlies. Yuck!!!!!!!!! It took 10 minutes one day to pick a bug up and move it outside. I think i need to do it a few times, but it’s great knowing you got over it so i can too. 1st coffee, then spiders, what’s next…. any tips on crazy dancing addictions.. no pressure but Bryan’s sanity depends on it

Posted by Little Dee | October 1, 2008, 10:55 am

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ok darlz next time you need a bug removed, call me! for some reason i have never been afraid of any type of bug (except the computer-virus kind)

Posted by Lillian Gish | October 1, 2008, 2:04 pm

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Been looking at the tunnel-web spider photo again. Is it just me, or does the spider look like it has a big afro?

Posted by Symon | October 2, 2008, 9:18 pm

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haha – it does look like it has an afro! Darls – you can do it – I had a fear of daddy-long-legs and slowly overcame my fear.

Posted by kristy | October 3, 2008, 3:19 pm

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You crack me up Syms! Love the fro Spidey.

Posted by Les | March 9, 2011, 7:54 pm

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