A Question on Brown Recluse Spiders and My Tarantula :(

[Arachnophobphile]

First I did a search to try and find if this has been posted on but I couldn't find anything.

I live in the MidWest in the U.S. and my home has a real problem with Brown Recluse spiders. I don't think I need to tell anyone definitely here about that spider and it's venom lol.

So I'm a newb and I'm shopping to get all my items first before ordering my 1st T. Then the thought crossed my mind as a huge issue when my spiderling reaches juvenile stage and older with Recluse spiders. They are highly territorial and kill everything in their area so I'm worried about one finding it's way into my T's enclosure possibly through an air hole and killing it.

My first thought was to put screen over the air holes on the outside when it's in a bigger enclosure from spiderling stage but read never to use screen.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated, thanks to all replies.

 

[Hardus nameous]

No need to worry. Every house I've had in Kansas has been full of Loxosceles reclusa and this has never been an issue. You have much better chances of winning the lottery five times in a row than a reclusa harming your tarantula.

 

[Arachnophobphile]

Thanks for replying Hardus nameous that gives me a huge relief

So I guess the Recluse will never enter the enclosure to begin with or will the Tarantula kill it? I was just worrying about the Recluse getting a first bite in

 

[Nightstalker47]

Yeah, I would not be worried about the tarantula getting eaten.

So I guess the Recluse will never enter the enclosure to begin with or will the Tarantula kill it?

Very unlikely for it to find a way inside, and even if it were to somehow happen...any juvie tarantula will easily overpower a smaller bodied true spider.

 

[Hardus nameous]

Thanks for replying Hardus nameous that gives me a huge relief

So I guess the Recluse will never enter the enclosure to begin with or will the Tarantula kill it? I was just worrying about the Recluse getting a first bite in

I've never seen one enter any of the enclosures. Even if they did, the only enclosures with openings large enough for the reclusa to fit through would be on the larger invert enclosures. This would be akin to me hopping into a cage with a grizzly bear.

 

[Arachnophobphile]

LMAO......ok I think I get it now lol.

 

[boina]

You guys have it all backwards. Loxosceles can be dangerous to humans but that doesn't have anything to do with how dangerous they are to other spiders. Loxosceles feed on insects. They may be defensive towards other spiders but they don't go out of their way to attack them.

Now Pholcus, on the other hand, your harmless daddy long legs, is an avid and skilled hunter of spiders much larger than itself. It hunts house spiders, cellar spiders, huntsman, hobo spiders, black widows... everything. And it kills them and eats them. So, a Pholcus getting into a sling enclosure definitely would spell death for the sling, even if it is several times the size of the attacking Pholcus. My house is infested with Pholcus and I make very sure to keep the vent holes in my sling enclosures small enough so a Pholcus won't get through.

 

[chanda]

While you probably don't have anything to worry about with the recluse spiders, there are other household spiders that can infest your enclosures.

I have an ongoing battle with Steatoda in my bug/reptile room - mostly S. grossa but sometimes S. triangulosa as well. I have a healthy population of these spiders in my house - particularly in the bug/reptile room, where they thrive on escaped feeders and whatever flies or other bugs wander in.

I don't really mind when they clean up the escapees and even appreciate their help with keeping the phorid fly population down, but I don't appreciate them when they invade my enclosures. The adults are far too big to fit through the ventilation holes, but the hatchlings fit through screens or ventilation holes with ease. They then hide away in the little holes in the cork bark or other cage decor/hides, feasting on their siblings and feeders, and sometimes even mature, mate, and hatch out babies of their own before I notice them.

They don't seem to cause a problem for the larger inverts like the tarantulas (aside from possibly annoying them with their webs) but they are definitely a problem for smaller creatures. I have lost a number of juvenile amblypygids, mantises, phasmids, and spiderlings to them - and they even took out a few of my husband's baby geckos. They absolutely devastated my Dolomedes okefinokensis hatchlings - I only have four spiders left, out of three sacs (the slings were being kept communally, so cannibalism was also an issue - but an acceptable loss, given that I can't release them into the wild and don't really want to isolate and raise hundreds of fishing spiders.)