And then one day I noticed it was shiny - like REALLY shiny - and black. I thought - hmmm - I wonder if it's a black widow?
Well the yesterday morning it was hanging there devouring a moth and I could see it's underbelly - the famous red hourglass was there! So yeah - black widow in my milk room. Complete with about 4-5 egg sacs. I was gonna kill it that night but when I told this guy at work, he said I should call Ft. Collins Discovery Center.
I called and the receptionist was like "oh. Well.... ever since we had this incident with a black widow almost escaping, the director won't let us take them anymore but I'll give you the number of our entomologist and I bet she'll just want it for herself at home"
So I call this lady and she is TOTALLY geeked out about having a black widow spider live and in person along with it's egg sacs.
Well I go home with my clean Skippy peanut butter specimen jar complete with holes drilled in the lid... I am putting the egg sacs in the jar (not with my fingers but with a long stick) and I notice...there is ANOTHER black widow spider!! I catch that one and the other one scurries into a spot where I can't get to it.
But... here's the thing. Evidently black widow webs are very abstract and all over the place - they don't have the nice round webs like our little friend Charlotte who loves Wilbur the pig. And black widows are very nocturnal.
Each morning for the past month or two I've been going into my milk room to milk the goats and there is all this webbing all over the entryway when I open the door... and I've sometimes walked into it... most mornings I brushed it all away with a broom. BOTH black widows were near this door - so each morning I'm stumbling into black widow territory, tearing thru their webs unbeknownst to me ..... until now...
One of those things coulda been in the middle of constructing the web and here I stumble in where it coulda dropped on my head or down my shirt. I was having serious heebie jeebies.
While I was in the shower later that night, Furry Husband brought the 2nd black widow in an empty salsa jar and set it on the bathroom sink for me to watch while I showered (glass shower door). I was convinced Mojo would jump up on the sink and knock the GLASS jar over on the tile below and I'd have this big ol' fat, pregnant black widow loose in the house laying egg sacs all over the place.
It didn't happen - and after my shower I moved her into a box with the other specimen jar and put them outside in case the eggs hatched and baby spiders leaked thru the air holes. ( can you feel your scalp itching just thinkin' 'bout it?? )
This morning I noticed this other HUGE spider - think 50 cent piece - and figure I'd take that to the spider lady too. She told me it was a cat faced spider when she came to get them. Here is what the cat faced spider I caught looks like. Can you see the cat face in her abdomen shape?
I guess they are harmless enough venom-wise but I'd have a serious heart attack or conniption fit or seizure if I was suprised by one of these on my pillow or crawling up my leg.
She said 570 children in Ft. Collins will see MY spiders through her teaching program. She travels to different schools and brings a collection of spiders and other insects. They will be well fed and she's excited about the egg sacs cuz she's been wanting a male black widow for her display... and I found out the reason she was SO big was cuz she was full o' eggs. "It's amazing how much they shrink once they lay thier eggs..." says the entomologist.
And I say, "good luck to you ma'am!" in a very Stephen Colbert voice.
Glad to be rid of my poisonous spiders and now that I've contributed to science, I'm gonna spray the milk room to kill any babies that may have hatched or other poisonous creepy crawlies that might still be lurking.
UCK!
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