Tarantulas on the loose in Britain

A good spider is a dead spider....... hate them , scared of them , cant catch one , i get the wife to do it and even then im shouting 'just kill it' lol.

I could send a few your way Don't you dare! We had a rainstorm this weekend. Basement flooded. Found one of these when moving stuff out of the water. Nibs I would not have liked that Sorry to hear about your flooding. A good spider is a dead spider....... hate them , scared of them , cant catch one , i get the wife to do it and even then im shouting 'just kill it' lol. Well at least you are being honest

We had a rainstorm this weekend. Basement flooded. Found one of these when moving stuff out of the water. Nibs Ugh. Disgusting. My garage was absolutely infested with those things once. The problem was quite handily dealt with by putting the car out in the driveway, and leaving a bug bomb in its spot. Killed the little beasts quite dead. Now we have an influx of house spiders, of both the regular and green varieties. Hate hate hate them, even more than I hate other kinds of spiders. At least wolf spiders run away from you and only bite when threatened, and jumping spiders are actually kind of ... [More]

A good spider is a dead spider....... hate them , scared of them , cant catch one , i get the wife to do it and even then im shouting 'just kill it' lol. Everything with more than four legs is dead meat in my book.

People who don't have a fear of Spiders/Tarantulas will never completely understand just how paralyzing it is when confronted with one in real life. It's an unimaginable fear. It's one of the reasons why I'm glad I'm European, we never used to have a problem with these things, why are they now showing up? I think if someone went to the trouble of getting one as a pet, then they would make sure it didn't escape. I reckon they're stowing away in foreign food imports. If I see that thing, I'll do my best to kill it.

Brown Recluse Spider?? Brown Recluse are little spiders. http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2061.html

These guys are actually quit friendly and no, they do not spit there hair at you. They rub there legs together making a small cloud of hair when threatened and if there hair gets in your eye it's a big irritant but will not blind you. If I remember the species correctly I held one a few months ago at a pet store. Just don't rub your eye's after, ouchy. Kinda like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaZi2lCyrQs

Of course fear and ignorance will cause people to kill them on sight. I'd love to have a Tarantula guarding my garden, eating pests that would ruin plants. Before killing take a moment to look it up. It might just change your mind. I have spiders in my house and I never disturb them. In turn I seldom see a fly, even in the summer and as for other insects, haven't seen one in years in my home. Of course my spider population is down to only about 3 because they have nothing to hunt or catch. Looks like they've become cannibals and only the strongest have survived. I have to admit that I remove t... [More]

Reading this thread has made me feel things crawling up my legs, non-existant things!! I dont fear spiders but i'm not particularly fond of them, I wouldn't like one crawling over my face put it that way, I definatley wouldn't kill one though however big. A friend of mine can't even look at a picture of one without freaking out. Oh well at least i'm safe here in the midlands........"GULP!" what the heck is that in the corner..... "phew!" its just spiderman!

The problem isn't the potential "threat" they pose to humans, but rather how they will interact in an ecosystem which has evolved isolated from an introduced species for often, millions of years. Some of the greatest ecological blunders of human history has been the introduction of alien species in new lands. Native inhabitants often have no defenses against predation or ways to compete for similar resources. Any of the thousands of instances of species introduction should be enough to recognize the potential danger of non-native tarantulas loose. Yeah Right! Like all the problems here in the ... [More]