this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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[–] notthebees@reddthat.com 6 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

I found a wolf spider with a bunch of babies in my sink. Scooped it up and put them in the leaf litter outside my house. Normally I never see them inside my house, especially carrying all of the babies.

[–] remon@ani.social 5 points 12 hours ago

They are not great indoor spiders but since they are always roaming around they sometimes end up inside homes.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 24 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

I remember a bush outside my window with the spider in it. Green body, orange legs... I watched her build a web all summer. One day there was an egg in the web. After a while, the egg hatched and hundreds of baby spiders came out and ate her.

[–] MeatPilot@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago

You're reading a magazine. You come across a full-page nude photo of a girl.

[–] Monzcarro@feddit.uk 5 points 15 hours ago (2 children)
[–] PrimeMinisterKeyes@leminal.space 6 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (2 children)

It's a quote from Blade Runner.
Lemmy, I am disappoint.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Thank you! I saw people sharing their creepy spider stories and immediately thought of this.

Was surprise when it started gathering upvotes seemingly just because people thought it was just another creepy story.

[–] remon@ani.social 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Seriously?

I was scratching my head because I couldn't think of any green bodied web-building spiders with orange legs that also practice matriphagy ...

[–] MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 1 points 13 hours ago

sounds like sharks and their siblings

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 76 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So I'm like 13 years old, climbing a tree at a friend's house. It's a bit of a shimmy up the trunk, I'm well in the air, hugging the tree. I look down at my feet to make sure I have footing before lifting a hand above my head to reach for a branch.

As my head is going from looking down to looking up, just as I am grabbing the branch and hanging from it, I realize that my nose is almost touching a big old wolf spider mama, fully laden with all her children.

DROP

I never climbed that tree again.

[–] LongLive@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Are they venomous or otherwise dangerous to humans?

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

One climbed onto my foot while I was brushing my teeth once and I launched myself into the wall behind me pretty hard which hurt. Other than that I don't think so.

[–] Noodle07@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Wow that sounds dangerous

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 53 points 1 day ago (2 children)

To add to what nougat said, because that’s very much the appropriate answer…

All spiders are in fact venomous- it’s part of how they feed. Many species, the venom is not harmful to humans, or only very weakly so. (Wolf spiders qualify as “very weakly so”)

That said, you try keeping a reasonable head when you suddenly come eyeball-to-eyeball with a wolf spiders qualify and her kids.

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

Yes, all spiders are venomous, but only few have venoum which are dangerous for humans and also only few capable to inject it under the human skin. Dangerous are only few species and not necesarly the biggest ones, eg, the Australian Huntsman is not. https://www.britannica.com/list/9-of-the-worlds-deadliest-spiders

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago

Did the comment above get edited? It look like you're just repeating the same thing stated in there.

[–] remon@ani.social 1 points 18 hours ago

Yes, all spiders are venomous

Almost all :)

[–] buffing_lecturer@leminal.space 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

All spiders are in fact venomous

Are there any exceptions to this? And what about non spiders like daddy long legs?

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

So, true spiders digest their food externally by injecting the venom. They then slurp it up. So the answer to that is "Yes". Some true spiders may also eat the more solid bits, but that's in addition to. but again, many- most- spiders are essentially harmless to humans.

harvestmen (daddy long legs) are not venomous and lack the mouth-parts necessary for injection, but they're not true spiders.

[–] remon@ani.social 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

So, true spiders digest their food externally by injecting the venom.

That is not quite correct. They inject the venom to kill the prey, after that they will inject digestive fluids which will liquify and pre-digest the insides before the spider slurps it up again. But the venom is not essential to the disgestive process.

harvestmen (daddy long legs) are not venomous and lack the mouth-parts necessary for injection, but they’re not true spiders.

Harvestmen can bite (though many are too small to penetrate skin, it's very rare), so it's not like they lack the mouth-parts per se, they just don't have any venom glands that are feeding into the mouth-parts.

Also Opiliones are not just not true spiders, they are not spiders at all ("true spiders" are one of the 3 infraorders of the spider order). Opiliones are their own order.

However "daddy long legs" could also refer to an actual spider (and a true spider at that), Pholcidae. It's quite the ambigious name (there is even an insect, the crane fly that is also going by that name in some places).

[–] kaklerbitmap@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

harvestmen (daddy long legs) are venomous and lack the mouth-parts necessary for injection, but they're not true spiders.

Harvestmen do not possess venom glands.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opiliones

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Dammit I need to be more careful when posting on mobile. Meant to say not, lol. Thanks for the correction

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Nope. Also, if you coax a momma into your hand, you can throw it at your enemies for a spectacular spider-bomb.

[–] LongLive@lemmy.world 7 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

🏌️🕷️ ——––-----___🎯👤

[–] hopesdead@startrek.website 9 points 22 hours ago

Spider-Bomb, Spider-Bomb

Does what ever a… AH! GET THAT THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 25 points 1 day ago

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/wolf-spider-bite

Seems like it's not even as bad as a bee sting. Spiders are really not very dangerous at all, generally speaking. They're going to leave you alone unless you're fucking with them.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When they get spooked they launch their kids everywhere to overwhelm potential predators. Imagine if you squashed a spider and suddenly you were covered in hundreds of tiny spiders?

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 1 points 15 hours ago

SC2 swarm hosts is probably based on this.

[–] seathru@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No, they are spider bros. They kill brown recluses, black widows, and other things that are dangerous. Typically do not mess with humans unless seriously provoked.

[–] remon@ani.social 4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

I get the sentiment, but black widows (and Theridiidae in general) are quite proficient in taking out wolf spiders and other prowling spiders, not the other way around.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I'm going to need to see some videos before I can determine who is winning this debate. With heavy metal background music, though I would also accept a David Attenborough narration. With and without the wolf spider swarm.

sigh For completion sake, should probably also check out some videos of each of those spiders vs other things like scorpions, mice, mongeese, non-mon geese, snakes, etc.

[–] remon@ani.social 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

I wouldn't recommend those types of videos. These are just the arthropod version of cock- or dog fighting and basically animal abuse. They also don't actually teach you much, since the scenarios don't reflect their actual behaviour in nature.

For example, almost every active hunting spider will kill a black widow if you put them in an enclosed space together. But in the real world the widows would be in her web where something like a wolfspider would get trapped long before getting close to the widow spider.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Yeah, they are morally dubious at best. But there's just something about watching things fight to the death that makes it so fascinating. Though I agree that it is best if they are each in their own natural environments rather than just shoved in a glass box together. They should have the option to disengage, too, because it's also interesting to know when two killing machines opt to not try each other (and based on the one video I did see of wolf spider vs black widow, I'd guess most of them would go that way because the wolf spider wasn't very interested in getting anywhere close to the widow and only killed it in the end because it kept trying to web it up).

That makes me wonder how many of the animal vs gladiator fights would have resulted in them walking away from each other.

[–] multifariace@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago (2 children)

First time I saw this was on the beach late on a moonless night. This was before cell phones, so I had to get close in the dim glow from a street light half a block away. They started sprawling.

[–] MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 1 points 13 hours ago

happened in our garage when a roommate stepped on a fat spider trying to kill it. mini spiders everywhere!

[–] Redex68@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

My condolences

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 19 points 1 day ago

TIL, it's not so much that we step on them as they they throw themselves under our footsteps...

[–] Lucky_777@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Try to keep wolf spiders alive but if you must kill, watch they don't have the hundred babies on their back. If they do....it's nightmare fuel

[–] Botzo@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago

Had a smoke detector going off randomly one night and I pulled it down only to have mama crawl all over my hand as the babies were running around like maniacs, some casting off. Mama still had a bunch on her when I got the smoke detector outside.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 day ago

You throw them at your enemies. Spider-bomb!

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 day ago

Walking back home from work at night I cross some fields, I see dozens of them. They are super easy to spot with a headlamp, their eyes shine like tiny glass shards or water droplets.

[–] Nikelui@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Since spiders get drunk on caffeine, she's doing a Starbucks run.

[–] 5in1k@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 day ago

Given THC the active ingredient in marijuana, the spider didn’t build a web, but a hammock. Where it would lay all day and watch the caffeine spider go.

[–] kalpol@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Don't make me stop this thorax