The spider in question is actually a variety of Huntsman common in many places like Taiwan and Australia.
The other monster mentioned in this thread is a Golden Orb Weaver also common in many places like South-East Asia and yes Taiwan. They are far more ferocious looking then the furry Huntsman but they will not stalk you!!!
Is the huntsman a poisonous spider. Just killed one last night in our apt. Never seen the other species here.
No, Huntsman spiders are not poisonous… The Golden Orb is not usually seen in houses.
Craig, you seem to be some kind of closet arachnophile, so maybe you can help me. Do you know of a large spider, about the size of the golden orb weaver above, but with a rounded abdomen, colored a bit like a yellowjacket wasp – yellow, with kind of slate-blue, well-defined stripes, found in the woods of Taiwan, makes a big web. Very large mandibles, evil-looking bugger.
Sandman
It is probably also a Golden Orb but a variation of the one I posted above. What kind of web does it spin? If is it is wide and flat then it is mostly likely an Orb.
Does this look a little like it?
As for the big furry ones people see I should also add it could be a Wolf spider as Sandman previosly mentioned. I have seen them also. There are many many kinds of Wolf spiders found all over the world. All of the spiders I have mentioned are not poisonious and they will not bite humans unless forced to. But yes they can bite!!
Wolf Spider
Nope, that look nothing like the one I saw – if anything, it looked more like a yellow and blue version of the huntsman spider (the shape, I mean).
The orb spiders I know well, both the big yellow ones like in your pic, as well as these much smaller, incredibly beautiful ones that have brilliant iridiscent green stripes and are very common.
How I wish I could find some decent English-language ref. books on Taiwan wildlife such as snakes, insects, spiders, etc.
I’m also sure I saw a vinegaroon (whip-tailed scorpion) in Bitan once. D’you think this could have been possible? I don’t know what else it could have been (or maybe it was the 'shrooms).
ok, i’ve been living with one of those huntsman spiders for a while now. i don’t really mind except i get freaked out that it might crawl over me or something when i’m sleeping. as for the eating undesirable insects, how does it do that? i mean, is there a big ass web somewhere in my room i don’t know about? and i don’t want it to eat the geckos. geckos are our friends, too. i don’t think i could catch or kill it if i wanted to. that sucker moves FAST.
Does anyone know anything about WHERE these types of spiders prefer to dwell? Here in the NW U.S. spiders tend to stay near places where soil or dirt is and/or trees or shrubbage, so for the most part are rarely found in upper level homes or apartments. Is this mostly true for all places, or Taiwan to be more specific?
Not doing so due to my being terribly arachniphobic- I am- but I haven’t lived close to the ground in quite a long time. In the last 2 apartments I’ve resided in (in the States) over the past 2 years I never once encountered a spider in my home, maybe because my flats were up pretty high from the ground. Nor, for that matter, did I get many bugs at all coming inside. Do the gargantuous spiders there, for the most part, live in the same way ?
(Hidden question: If I choose to live somewhere on the 5th floor or higher would I have a damn good chance of having none in my flat?) :?:
Thanks!
I live on the 7th floor and I just spotted those big (wolf??) spider in my bathroom!!!
Been trying to smash it and it keeps crawling into a crevice where it can’t be reached, and I don’t want to get near it because I was afraid it could be a brown recluse. I saw it last night and pumped it full of RAID and was wondering where the hell it went… and just 5 minutes ago I discovered a curled up spider, its down the toilet now.
I don’t care if its beneficial and stuff I HATE SPIDERS!!!1111
Especially those BIG ones!
It’s an Orb spider as well, but looks different from the picture. At least from that angle.
There’s this too. I so don’t know anything about spiders. But it looks different.
That’s from a blog I found about the Katoli park that closed after the earthquake.
Matt
the top two spiders are different species of the genus Argiope, which has representatives across the world. they make silk that is pure white, but one species (Argiope aurantia from the US) are called golden orb weavers for their gold patches on the abdomen. there is a one spider of that genus found in Japan, Argiope amoena, that is probably also found here.
the lower picture shows one of many species of Nephila, a large genus that is common across Asia. All of these are called golden orb weavers, forr their silk is bright yellow and very strong (they make one web that they keep up all day, rather than building a new one each night). they have a distinctive long abdomen, and some older females can grow to about 3-4 cm in length (spiders grow continuously, like fish and snakes, though the rate they get bigger slows down as they reach adulthood). there are at least a couple of Nephila species in taiwan.
the much smaller male can also be seen in the lower right of the bottom picture. it is orange in colour, and generally the males don’t last anywhere near as long as the 5 years or so of the females.
Ha, yeah the one from America, I know that one. Down south we call these writing spiders and the rumor goes that if you knock its web down it will rebuild it the next day and write your name in the web at which point you die!! Mother used to scare me all the time with this one when I was young. Beautiful spiders though.
As creeped out as I am with spiders, I am truly fascinated with them. I can’t explain exactly how I fear. It’s a phobia built with just as much admiration and fascination as fear.
The Orb spiders are gorgeous. We had one outside my classroom about 4 years ago that the children fell in love watching all day. It was gone the next day, though. Too bad. Maybe a bird got it or something. Or it just got tired of getting looked at through the window. ??
Since we’re talking about spiders ~ this video is a little older, but the Canadian Wildlife Service did a video on the effects of drugs on spiders:
youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc
Interesting documentary.
The itsy bitsy spider went up the water sprout…
Down came the BOMB…
That’ll take care of those spiders…
All spiders are poisonous the difference between being dangerous for humans is the ability to pears their fangs through your skin and the strength of the poison … and maybe allergies that people have for insect bites … but I suppose in Taiwan are no deadly poisonous spiders like the black widow or trap door spider …
spider venoms also vary in potency and in amount injected, which the spider can control at each bite. some venoms are really nasty, and even tiny amounts are fatal. others are much less dangerous, even if they inject a large amount: almost all of the tarantula spiders, for example (the big hairy ones that live in holes in the ground, like Mexican Red Knees, etc.).
BP is right that much of a spider’s ability to hurt you, as even a not-too venomous spider bite will still be painful, is the size of its fangs. small spiders simply cannot bite your fingers, but may be able to pierce the skin around the face or armpit (ouch).
and not all spiders are venomous: there is one family of small web spinners called the Uloboridae who actually don’t have venom glands anymore.
i think ther are definitely some balck wdows around in Taiwan, especailly as they are carried long distances in the nooks and crannies of shiping containers. most harbour port cities with a large container port have some kind of Latrodectus spiders… they are spreading further around the world thaks to modern shipping. Now they are also found to have settled quite comfortably around Osaka, and Yokohama in Japan for example, and around Le Havre and Amsterdam. the Redback spider of Australia may well have been imported there in the mid 1800s, as they were never reported in the first 50 years of the colony. Where they actually came from, no one really knows.
[quote=“fraunet”]Crawling on a cushion on the floor.
Maybe 20 mm long body…long legs that are really floppy and thin. Brown, hairy, with spots legs which are little, cream-colored circles with a black rim.
Black and brown, thin stripes on the lower underbelly.
Looks like it has fangs, like a tarantula.
Ahhh!!! I have it in a tupperware right now.
Anyone know what it is? [/quote]
It’s a cane spider. They’re huge and they move very fast. They jump. But they’re friendly. They eat cockroaches. Some people like to have them in their apartments. They’re not poisonous, unless you’re a cockroach.
Orodacus,
Just curious - how you came to know about spiders so well.
i used to be a scientist, studying neurotoxins found in spider, scorpion and snake venoms. another life, a long time ago.
now i just like spiders for their, how d’you say it, intrinsic beauty? inner glow? inherent interest?