Pretty Prulevege
(midwest.social)
196Had to evict a big ass spider from my room today and was reminded of this meme template. At least it's easier to evict spiders than cats, the latter don't fit in measuring cups.
spiders are fine as long as they arent poisonous, and Estonia doesn't have poisonous spiders in the wild
Someone here mentioned a while ago that some house spiders learn your active hours and typically come out to hunt when you're either not around or asleep.
I usually ignore them because I'd much rather deal with occasional corner cobwebs than literally any other pest hanging around.
Spiders are the only thing not interested in my food.
It's also common knowledge that when you're inactive (sometimes referred to as asleep) spiders descend into your mouth about 8 times per year. 🫥
What are they doing, just fucking teabagging me in my sleep tri-fortnightly?!
I draw the line at black widows, like the ones outside my sibling’s house.
They are not friend shaped.
For real.
Black Widows and Brown Recluses, no thank you.
Cellar spiders and jumping spiders - you're good.
Not saying you should befriend black widows or anything but they are actually pretty docile and will only bite in extreme situations when they are trapped and it’s the only option. Typically they will just pretend to be dead.
Nobody cares, but the four fingers angers me.
I have black widows all over my house, they are welcome here. You are not.
There's one right by the front door, waiting for you. They are very patient and well-behaved companions.
Also, both will absolutely bite you, randomly. And climb on random things.
At least spiders won't drop things off ledges
Except for themselves. Usually aiming land on your head for some inexplicable reason.
Well, they are not really the same, are they? One is cute, small, furry and graceful. And the other one's a cat.
Spider are cool outside but not inside.
i mean, they're pretty much entirely room temperature, unlike cats, which are warm blooded
Thanks to the heatwaves, cats are also room temperature
Soon, they'll be colder than room temperature
Or is it the room that is cat temperature? 🤔
ok but also valid me and the spiders have a rule. they stay outside and keep the perimeter clear and i dont freak out T_T
though as much as i'm terrified of spiders they'll always end up with me getting the biggest cup you can find, sliding a paper under it, and screaming all the way to the window.
To be honest, putting them in a glass really helps me. Not too much of an arachnophobe but once they're contained I have absolutely no issues.
I recommend cardboard instead of paper btw, it's so much more sturdy and there's zero risk of the spider noticing a gap and escaping when tilting to lift it up. I'm using the same strategy for wasps that somehow found their way inside and refuse to fucking leave through the open window and there the lack of gap is SO much more important because I don't want a pissed off wasp escaping.
cardboard is a little harder to slide under the glass but i do recommend like thicker letters (like bulk mail etc)
The best thing I've found is packaging paperboard (the thick non-corrugated paper material cereal boxes and similarly packaged products are made from) - stiff enough to not flop even on big openings, but thin enough to slip under without risking a containment breach or trapping one of the spider's legs (make sure it doesn't have a crease though, as those can both lead to floppage and binding when slipping under the cup). We've got a chunk of it that lives with the dedicated SpiderScooper™ jar and I haven't had a mishap yet! As a bonus it's dense enough material that wasps can't sting you through it like they can with cheaper paper (bulk mailers or clay-heavy papers like you get in junk mail seem to block that too though!) and it's strong enough that it will support the weight of mice and similar small critters without much effort.
If a spider was you sized it wouldn't hesitate
"A tiger enters the room"
I always feel bad when I have to remove spiders from the house. I try to be gentle, and I do hope that they stick around outside. There's more for them out there anyway.
ITT: Orb Weavers seemingly help to reduce arachnophobia? Chill little dudes, just trying to get by like the rest of us
As a borderline arachnophobe, I've had the privilege of hosting a gorgeous orb weaver in a really awesome spot for this season. She's got a massive space, where lots of flies come, and it's in a social area outdoors, but the location is perfectly situated for viewing from a distance so it doesn't trigger anything for me.
She has her mate, she's healthy as hell, and I'm actually dreading the day she passes because it's become a bit of a ritual daily interaction with her.
Have you considered getting her a companion, like some pig?
a rat and a goose would make good friends too.
Now am sad
I know which one I'd feel more comfortable waking up next to...
i'm still waiting for the domestic jumping spiders smh, i want a rat-sized pet jumping spider that can ride on my shoulder and lean into scritches.
Do you read? Have you heard of the children of time series?
haven't read a word in my life so unfortunately i have no clue what you wrote
Using Lemmy must be hard
I'm usually arachnophobic, but once I had an orb weaver decide to live on the back of my work truck. Freaked me out at first, but I let it be. It would come out of it's hiding spot at night to make its web across the truck, and I would watch it clean up in the morning before I left. Almost got it on my face a few times while doing overnight work. It stayed with me all summer, I could always find it hidden under a door seal or up on the ladder rack, tucked away.
It was nice almost having a pet. Then, one morning, I get ready to leave for work. The web was still up, tattered, and spider bro was nowhere to be seen...
That ending was surprisingly sad.
Personally, and idk if there's a phobia for this, I really don't like things that are small and fast. If I can't keep track of something it makes me uncomfortable. So spiders are an ick for me.
this is why i'm generally fine with orbweavers: they will literally stay in the exact same spot forever if they keep catching food, and if they decide to relocate they won't spend more energy than necessary.
many years ago I had a big one that camped over a light in a corner that was always on, so I got to see her catch SO MANY things. Moths, earwigs, other spiders... Spiders do unfortunately poop so the lampshade had spots on it but it was evidence of what WASN'T roaming around my place
I fucking love spiders, they’re awesome
I taught my kids early and often that spiders are friends, aside from a few dangerous ones we don't really encounter here. Mosquitos are scarier than spiders. One of my kids is still terrified of spiders though 😭
I don't think arachnophobia is learned or a result of upbringing!
Look at any 2 year old digging around in the dirt and notice how they will happily pick up and examine spiders and other "creepy crawlies" with their bare hands. They haven't learned from society as a whole that they're supposed to be weirded out or afraid of these things.
We tried so hard to raise our kids to not be afraid of spiders, and to decide for themselves whether they had a preference for blue or pink, dolls or cars etc. But none of that effort survived contact with their extended family or starting school.
At least for the spider thing we're having some success with unlearning that fear. When it's a choice between spiders in their room or mosquitoes, they're choosing the spiders.
I haven't been able to observe all two year olds. It's only a few percent of the population that has arachnophobia, and the fact that it doesn't always present in infancy doesn't mean it's learned.
Though it's quite possible there's a combination of predisposition and learning.
Definitely some evolutionary coding at play.
One of my coworkers said she was trying to catch some ants to try to nurse a spider in her house back to good health. Absolutely insane behavior.
tell her that she's my friend and I love her for that
golly, what a woman 💘
We have huntsman spiders in Australia, they make great house pets. It’s a little game everyday to see what wall/corner they have moved to and they keep other bugs away.
They also eat mice and lizards and can drag them up the walls.
There's all the people posting that they are arachnophobic in the comments, and then there's this person lmao.
I wonder if they were more common here would people be more or less arachnophobic in general? Like, I'm much more afraid of a wasp than a crow because crows cannot sneak up and stab me. Or rather, they haven't tried. UNLIKE WASPS.
I'd still be careful with crows. They're wicked smart, can mimic sounds including human speech, and remember your face for life.
However, crows are normal beings, while wasps are demons from hell. It's unfair to compare them
I will defend the wasps. Most are harmless, many perform vital duties like pollination and pest control (they parasitize hornworms in the garden for example), and even species with reputations for being angry will only be angry if you get near or destroy their homes. And who wouldn't?
I spent the last month pressing apples for cider and almost immediately this activity attracts fleets of yellow jackets. But as long as you don't smoosh any they won't sting and are quite friendly. I will even grab them out of the cider bucket with my bare hands if they fall in, and set them down to dry off with no risk. They're kind of like cats in a way, curious and a bit moody, again though, as long as you don't start messing around with their nests
with crows it's a very human kind of threat, they take offense to the same things we do and retaliate in the same way.
Whenever crows come up, I remember that ~~fake as fuck~~ totally legit true story bro of someone who started a crow gang war by offering french fries to one side and annoying and harassing the other.
Exactly. Even better, you're not obligated to interact with them, so they'll always be strangers you can simply ignore and respect.
Wasps are important links in the decomposition cycle [of your happiness].
cereally tho, if you're eating outside and you attract the attention of The Wasp, you must offer payment for their services. Animal proteins are most valuable, followed by whatever else they might be interested in. Just remove a little piece of whatever it is, hold it up for them to sense, and put it to the side. It's actually really cool to see them carve up a chunk of it and carry it off like a heavy cargo helicopter.
I kept wokf spiders in my place. They take care of ants, prevent roaches, and get rid of the other spiders that are dangeous. No help with mice, though.
Huh, it might've actually been a wolf spider that I threw out. Didn't know spiders that don't build nets enjoy entering homes. I guess temperatures are starting to drop, so it makes sense.
At least it would explain why it was just sitting in the middle of my wall nowhere near a corner.
Also apparently the other commentator was right, your wolf spiders are probably too small:
Wolf spiders are a vital source of natural pest control for many people's gardens or even homes, since the wolf spider preys on perceived pests such as crickets, ants, cockroaches, and in some cases lizards and frogs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider
just find some bigger ones
I would not like to live together with a spider that helps with mice. That beast would probably keep me from living in my home or cure my arachnophobia by force,either one of the two.
Had an ongoing battle of wills with a very large spider. It kept getting stuck in the sink and I kept moving it back out. Tried to convince it that there was better prey outside in the patio corner but it seemed to disagree. It finally disappeared. I don't love spiders but I don't love annoying bugs any better so I'm happy for the spiders to catch and eat their fill.
One time I pulled out my chemex after a while of not drinking coffee and found that a huge spider had fallen in it and starved to death. It's the four cup version, so the fren was easily the size of two human fists if including the legs.
Spiders are my favourite critters :D
We have a family of spiders in the bathroom that have survived a few generations now. Spiders are friends!
Can we really say spiders domesticated themselves when we were the ones to come live in their habitats (caves)? What are houses but a recreation of caves we used to call home?
Yeah, I'm not sure they count as "domesticated". I was always given to understand that domesticated implied some basic degree of understanding that they were part of an arrangement with humans, e.g. cats know that you're feeding them and don't attack you, whereas an otherwise-untrained wild animal will readily bite the hand that feeds it.
Cambridge Dictionary on the other hand has a different definition: "brought under human control in order to provide food, power, or company", which also doesn't fit spiders, because it implies they're under my control when they're very much not.
the big thing with domestication is that they kinda need to have some genetic changes, otherwise they're just tame or chill.
And yeah cats kinda sorta aren't domesticated, they're not very different from their ancestors and i'd wager there are african wildcats who just decide to become housecats every now and then.
I'd class ""domestic"" spiders alongside raccoons, rats, and foxes: animals who just inherently function really well in human habitats.
They could've decided to just stay in their cold and moist caves. But warm and dry homes are apparently more pleasent. I don't fault them.
One of my favs pest eradicators:
I love the sound kilometrepedes make when they walk.
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=axxTrn_qb3M
I get a JavaScript error
::: spoiler screenshot :::
Could you drop a yt link for those of us that don't use alternatives yet?
Watch code/identifier: watch?v=axxTrn_qb3M
https://yt.chocolatemoo53.com/watch?v=axxTrn_qb3M
https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=axxTrn_qb3M
Do you have a script blocker? Which browser are you using? I really hate youtube/google and I like to avoid linking to it directly. Sometimes I use youtube just to have a 1440p stream or to download the videos, in which case I block most of the scripts it tries to load, especially the analytics/ad serving ones. *and use a vpn. **and an ad blocker.
Anyway, as others have said just copy the 'watch code' into the youtube url (or hopefully invidious front end :3) and it should work then.
"axxTrn_qb3M" is the video identifier
So replace "https://inv.nadeko.net/" with "https://youtu.be/"
And then add the video identifier to the end
So... https://youtu.be/axxTrn_qb3M
Of course it's not really intuitive, but that's how it works
And why is it not "https://youtube.com/" before the video identifier? Idk, maybe someone will teach us both
Thanks for that!
And I'd also like to know why it shortens the link different ways
Well you can literally swap out the domain name, the video identifiers stay the same
I didn't know that, thanks!!
