Scorpions and Spiders

[WATCHFULI70]

really what UV light did you get?  I am interested.  I have wanted one for many years but I am picky,  I would like some reviews.  highdesertranger

 I went to Ebay to find my 2 lights and they don't have a name on them but I didn't pay more that $5-$7 for each. They work great. I use them right now to make the markers on my watch glow.

 

[WATCHFULI70]

 I purchased to of those black lights a couple of months ago.

Thanks

Here's the link to the two lights:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-UV-LED-...-Blacklight-/262521704521?hash=item3d1f835049

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Black-Mini-...-Light-Lamp-/381083836381?hash=item58ba5ddfdd

 

[akrvbob]

In my last 8 years in the desert I have had ZERO encounters ZERO problems with scorpions or tarantulas and I give them ZERO thought.

 

[jimindenver]

Please if you see them, point them out. I wanna take some pictures up close.

 

[SternWake]

Spiders are a fact of life.

When I found the first black Widow under my Van, The SOB was huge, and I flushed it out at a high pressure car wash and stamped it. Next night I saw that the mother of all black widows was keeping the others in check, and now they moved in and a flashlight revealed no less than a dozen has set up webs for hunting.

I flyswatted all those, and then I developed an Ant problem. When the Black Widows came back, no more ant problems.

Not I have a faithful legion of black widows who live under my van, or at least adopt it for their hunting grounds at night and no more ants.

So I've gotten over the spiders.

Not had enough opportunity to get over the scorpions.

Kind of find them all beautiful, and much easier to look at than our election candidates.

 

[ccbreder]

Not the locusts! Not the Locusts!

 

[Almost There]

To those of you who are deathly afraid of spiders, particularly large ones - please keep in mind that Sternwake tries to never go further than 25 miles +/- from an ocean. Ain't no ocean in AZ or NM, last time I checked.

We were talking about desert dangers!

And HDR was no help at all with the locusts....

 

[rvpopeye]

I lived in Tucson which must be the Black Widow capitol of the SW.
I sprayed a can of ant and roach killer on my inner wheels and the rest of the can under the rig and a little under the hood. Redo once a year or so and no ants , roaches , spiders , or alien invaders when I went to Roswell either...but there were mosquitos there ...whoda thunk?

Scorpions ,,,,, got a UV flashlight and never saw 1 when I lived in Death Valley for 7 months (I was really hoping that I'd see some THERE)!

I did find a tic on my dog once....

Don't Worry , Be Happy . (think about all the snow that isn't on the ground...)

 

[SternWake]

We were talking about desert dangers!

Southern California is a coastal desert, It just pipes in a lot of water which makes things greener than otherwise, and likely increases spider populations, And in Baja one is never more than 25 miles from the ocean/gulf, and they have a huge scorpion population.  Seemed like scorpions were only an issue for tent campers.

Get a UV light for them.  They apparently glow.

 

[SoulRaven]

We lived in the desert in mobile home for 6 years just north of Tucson, AZ. We had a open area behind a dryer that was huge and left open and two scorpions came in one evening. My preference would be to have caught them, but unfortunately I had to kill them. They were fast and I was tired of messing with them.

I had the opportunity to just see one tarantula outside our mobile home. It was big and so beautiful. It wanted nothing to do with me and scurried away. We had a albino colored lizard and a horned toad that I saw nearly everyday. I actually walked at 4:00 AM in the morning on our desert acre. I never saw a single snake during that time.

Gosh, there are hazards everywhere. In KS, for years and years, no tornado or brown recluse spiders have darkened my path.

 

[jimindenver]

That pretty much parallels what exterminators say. To get rid of the spiders, you have to remove the reason they are there. They will look for more productive areas if you remove the food supply.

 

[DannyB1954]

Here in Pahrump Nv we have Black Widows. I have dealt with many on my property. They will not jump out and attack you as maybe a movie will lead you to believe.

I have not seen a scorpion here, but I used to have them when I lived in the mountains East of Sonora Ca., (near Twain Harte). This is in the middle of a forest. I had Black Widows there as well.

I worry about the insecticides used to kill pests more than I worry about the pest.

 

[wayne49]

This is a very serious topic for me and my husband. My husband is in a wheelchair and I'm scared to pieces when it comes to scorpions and spiders. We have lived in Las Vegas and Laughlin and it wasn't until we moved to laughlin that we had our first encounter with a tarantula.

I think I saw a tarantula recently. All I saw was a brown tubular leg as it flew into a hole in the ground as I approached. Which is pretty much what all of the desert dwellers do, in my experience of 11 months.

I am in Amargosa Valley. Across US 95 is a feature known as Tarantula Canyon. I was there late August early September and there were rabbits everywhere, but no spiders. The word I have is that the tarantulas come out around Halloween then disappear.

I was told in a recent Trauma care class the only desert animal in lower Nevada that is aggressive is the green mojave snake. The rest do not want anything to do with unwanted visitors.

 

[Dennis]

Tarantula mating season is Sept/Oct the best I remember. There is an area north of DFW I use to travel quite a bit and that was the time of year I saw a lot of male Tarantulas crossing the highway. I hated that because I didn't want to run over them but they could be seen splattered where they crossed. There was an old service station I would stop in and they had an outside restroom. At certain times I could go in there and see three to four of them in there. Usually on the ceiling and walls.

 

[jimindenver]

I have shot insect photography for a decade and only once was I stung by a wasp as she built her nest. It was a warning shot as the lens had been within a inch of the new nest for 5 minutes or so. Most spiders shun any contact if they can. A few will stay still but it's because they thing they are camouflaged and I just happen to be there.

 

[Headache]

All this talk reminds me of the best man scream ever.  The man behind that scream just happened to meet up with his costar:

[video=youtube]

For those of you that can't watch youtube it's a video of actor Daniel Stern and a tarantula he'd found in his garage.

 

[SternWake]

Election night in 2004, Bush vs Kerry, I was in Baja, and a large tarantula walked in the door of my friends cottage, and 3 of the super macho manly men Mexican's jumped on the furniture screaming.

 

[sephson]

At work in the amphitheater I see all kinds of wildlife. I've seen a few scorpions, squished one in the make-up area. I've long since lost track of how many black widows I've seen and killed. I see a tarantula every two to three years. They're harmless, so I leave them alone. I've seen several California Diamondback rattlesnakes, killed one. I've seen various non-venomous snakes. I've seen skunks, raccoons, opossums, deer, coyotes and even a pair of bobcats, fifteen years apart. I've even walked through a swarm of bees without getting stung.

 

[jimindenver]

When bees swarm they usually don't sting, in fact you can stick your hand in and they do nothing. In the middle of that swarm is a new queen and she took a good chunk of the hive with her. We use to get this one until the neighbor had the main hive removed. They said they took 35 pounds of honey out. We boxed up this swarm for a bee keeper because it was going to storm hard and drown them all.

 

[TrainChaser]

Tarantulas usually take one look at a human and run screaming for shelter, sounding EXACTLY like Daniel Stern, followed by: "OMG! HUMANS! RUN!"

"... the American Tarantula Society internet site, says that the tarantula's 'venom is of no medical significance, and contrary to popular belief, nobody has ever died from such a bite' …"

When I lived in Las Vegas, there was a black widow every 18" in the rocks lining the bottom of my mother's fence, just cowering and telling me to leave the nest alone.

Now, if you want to see a REAL KILLER in the desert, they look something like this" http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/04/us/phoenix-serial-shootings/