🚀 go-pugleaf

Seth Fehrs (fehrs002@mc.duke.edu) wrote:
> Just like to remind y'all that black widows are endemic to the area
> (I saw a few this weekend).   Supposedly they are rarely fatal
> but can be rather unpleasant, though many bites are mild.

Cases of humans dying from black widow bites in the US, is like 2 in 5
years.  Cross that with the number of ppl that think, 'oh a spider, Let's
pick it up.'

> I saw several one summer as an installer of aluminum siding.  They
> liked out of the way eaves and other nook n' crannies on houses.
> Today I was moving some rocks lining the driveway where the
> grass was overgrown so I could mow it, and picked up one
> rock and noticed a big ol' black spider guarding an egg sac.
> It had the classic shape; turning it over with a stick, I saw the
> hourglass.   This one was big, two or three times the size of
> what I was used to.

The hourglass only occurs on females, if I remember right...

> Poking around the grass, I noticed at least one other, and it too
> had an egg sac.  Hopefully the mulching mower got them all.

There's a black widow, and egg sac outside Dey Hall, UNC-CH.  I'm not
saying where, 'cause I don't want it to be killed, but if you know of
someone who will give it a, so to speak, better home, I'll tell them. :)

> Seth Fehrs

> Don't get me started on poision ivy.

Poison ivy in almost no way compares to spider bites... Least from my
experience. :)

:)