Brown Recluse at Midnight

Found in the closet Friday night as I was taking off my shoes. Time to clean out the dang closet!

Spider Tunnel in the Yucca

 These spiders live in tunnely webs among grasses and bushes and, in this case, a yucca.

I didn't see the second spider at the top of the tunnel until I looked at the photos . . . now that I've looked more, I think it's dead, and the other spider has taken up residence.

There is another one of these in the yucca by the front porch . . . the spider is recently gone, so now I'm waiting to see if someone else comes along and moves in.

 

Tarantula III

Tarantula II

My gosh, that was one giant tarantula.

Hello, Buddy! Goodbye, Buddy!

In the kitchen, doing dishes, cleaning up, looking down. Hello, Buddy!

Here is my little friend on its way back to nature via the front steps, post-Tupperware (which is a wonderful scooping aid).

Tiny Scorpion and Five-Cent Euro

It's a wee one. The euro is 2.2 cm in diameter.

My Spider Companion

Wee Spider

If I flatten out and lie very still, no one can see me.

The New Guy

This rather beefy black spider had been hanging around in the bathroom lately; last night he was in this empty flowerpot there (its diameter is about .5 inches / 1.27 cm). I just went to measure the hole in the pot and found the spider now dead.

It's most like a trapdoor spider, Ummidia sp., (looking in my Texas Spiders book), but that's an uncertain identification.

The Largest Wolf Spider I Have EVER SEEN

What a beauty! He was hanging out on the front porch tonight, above the recycling, on the office window screen. He is giant, absolutely GIANT. Every bit as large as a small to medium tarantula.




My finger for scale

Spider on the Bedroom Overhead Lamp, Just Wishing I Would Go Away

Scorpion #3 2011, in Absentia

No photo of #3; just this note to record the event for all posterity. In bed last night, with a cold pack on my hot feet, I felt something whispery on my ankle and somehow I knew, in the way that one knows such things, that I wanted to get up very quickly. I did, and there was a rather large scorpion running away from where my ankle had been.

Did he fall from the loft above, or had he been inside the dish towel I'd taken from the drawer to wrap around the cold pack? Only the Scorpion knows . . .

I do feel this supports my argument that they don't sting just for the hell of it, just because one's ankle or whatever is there. It was just using my ankle to walk on, and the ankle was not threatening it, so no sting.

I Heart Spiders

Scorpion #1, 2011 (and #2 in Absentia)

From May 2 in the bathroom. A few days later another showed up in the same place; one of its pincer arms was dragging behind it, poor thing. I took it out outside without making it suffer through a photo shoot.

Wolfi

In the bedroom last night. I am convinced that the wolf spiders, which are plentiful always but especially in the last couple of years, help keep the brown recluses away, for which I am extremely grateful.

Jumping Spider of a New Variety, Found in the Kitchen Sink Tonight

...and then liberated on my desk after our photo shoot. I've never seen such a spider face! I think she looks very much like a Texas horned lizard.

Orbweaver

Morning Dew on the Mailbox Spider's Web

The Jesus Spider

What is this spider doing? It just sat there, sat there, sat there with its arms open wide, and then it would move to a new location and sit there, sit there, sit there with its arms open wide.




I love how its eyes look as though it's wearing a little mask.

Spider on the Mailbox

It was sitting in the middle of its gorgeous, gigantic web until it saw me coming.