Creepy Crawlies

My job is to work with things that are normally considered "creepy crawlies" so generally I am not phased by many things. For instance, these little guys...

Juvenile Blue racer snake, non-venomous

Are the subject of my Masters in Biology research. Honestly, you have to admit they are kinda cute. On top of that, I've held or cared for dozens of other types of snakes, lizards, frogs- the general gamut of reptiles and amphibians (including some venomous!). While I find myself comfortable around most venomous vertebrates, it's really the venomous invertebrates that I find my heart rate hastening around.

There is a particular class of creatures that do give me the classic "willies" or "h/eebie-jeebies" as I like to say. Those are the arachnids. This is nothing new, tons of people have negative feelings toward spiders (or other arachnids--see: ticks, mites, scorpions, etc.), and generally while I don't welcome their presence inside of the house I see their importance. And because it was a particular spider that spurred this post, I am going to focus on spiders specifically.

Spiders just like almost all other animals, play an important role in balancing our ecosystems. If you get rid of the spiders, it throws off the invertebrates that it preys on (eats) and those that eat them (see: birds-which are reptiles, amphibians, non-bird reptiles, other invertebrates, etc.). For an example--

Say a bird eats a spider and a spider eats a fly....if the spider is taken out of the equation, and the birds wont eat the flies...then the number of flies increases and the number of birds decreasing (assuming that ONLY the spider eats the flies and nothing else does, and the bird will ONLY eat the spider and nothing else).

This is obviously a very simplified example, but it gets the point across nonetheless.

Now for this evenings happenings and what led to this post in the first place...I was getting ready to take a bath with a Lush bath bomb (Ickle baby bot--if you are interested), and I was greeted by this little guy/gal...

The mystery spider in a drinking glass later identified as the dreaded Brown Recluse

This isn't the first spider I found in my bathtub, and if last summer is any indication, it wont be the last. My general M.O. for these situations is to capture the spider so I can first identify it and then do with it whatever I deem appropriate--those that pose some danger to me I kill, those that don't are given a new home in the great outdoors--where they belong. I don't generally condone killing of spiders because of their important role in the food web (haha, get it?) but I don't like to risk another encounter with dangerous animals.

After a brief search, my suspects were confirmed that this was a brown recluse spider. Brown recluse spiders are a fairly venomous spider and can lead to extensive tissue damage and pain if a bite is left unnoticed or untreated for very long. Needless to say, his/her fate was sealed once I identified it completely. 

The easiest way to determine if it is a brown recluse spider is the presence of a violin shape on the first segment of their body (the cephalothorax, which includes their head and thorax). Additionally, they have relatively long, thin and tapered legs, and are not a hairy spider.

What kind of creepy crawly stories do you have? Are there any animals in particular that you get the "h/eebie jeebies" about? Let me know in the comments below!