If you know anything about spiders, you'll want to take issue with my title. A web article reminded me today (in a "duh" moment), that all spiders are poisonous, as every spider uses its poison to paralyze its prey before chowing down. Bees and wasps, also "poisonous" critters, use their venom when scared or agitated.

Spiders, it appears, rarely bite humans, and usually only do so when trapped, like between a foot and the inside of a shoe, which is exactly what happened to me a few months ago. The spider was fairly small, but the experience wasn't exactly pleasant.

I brought up the subject of poisonous spiders because my inquisitive children did some sleuthing on their own today and disproved my "fisher spider" theory (please see my "Creepy Crawlies x2" entry, below). They believe my short-lived not-so-little friends were actually giant house spiders (isn't that a nice name...), not fisher (a.k.a. nursery) spiders. I did a little searching, too, and hobo spiders also seem to fit the bill, looks-wise.

That's creepy in itself, as hobo spiders, which are fairly common from Alaska down to Montana, across to Oregon and over to Utah, have a "necrotizing" bite. In other words, the tissue around the bite has the potential to decay. Ugh. That would truly be an awful thing to experience. I won't show pictures of hobo spider bites here; those are easy enough for you to look up on your own, if you have the stomach for that sort of thing.

I will, however, include a picture of a giant house spider, which is most likely the species that visited us:

HOWEVER...the picture below is of a male hobo spider, and I think the body of this one is closer to what I actually saw...twice. I think the jury may have to remain out on this subject!

All of that said, I really am not a spider person, and have no plans to post any more spider pictures. These guys are giving me a good case of the willies...almost as much as the real ones on our bedroom wall did.