A common question we get is, “Are spiders poisonous?” and “Are daddy long legs poisonous?” In this post, we reveal the facts about some common poisonous spiders.
Is this a spider bite?
One thing to really keep in mind is that very rarely do spiders ever bite humans. Most people don’t like spiders, but for the most part they aren’t harmful to humans. In fact, it’s usually quite the opposite.
Of course, spiders can be terrifying and seem to pop out of nowhere and scurry across the room when you least expect it, but they help keep a lot of other insects in check.
Spiders can be a form of natural pest control in your home, but if you are seeing a lot of spiders that means they have an ample food source available to them. This usually indicates that you have other pest issues in your home that you might what to have checked out.
On top of that though, a common question we get in pest control is, “Is this a spider bite?” More often than not, things that you think are bug bites or spiders bites aren’t really even a bug bite at all.
There are a lot of things that could seem like a spider bite but in reality aren’t such as bed sores, skin infections, rashes, and in extreme cases even cancer. A pest control service really isn’t the best way to identify if you were “bitten” by a bug or not, or if a specific kind of bug bit you or not.
A pest control service really isn’t trained to identify potential bug bites or skin issues, it’s best to consult a doctor with such concerns. It is important to keep in mind that different people will react differently to different bites, infections, etc. If you are having pest issues in addition to what you think might be bug bites, a pest control service can certainly help with that, just not wound or “bite” identification.
Is this spider poisonous?
Another common question we get in the pest control business is, “Is this spider poisonous?” This is really a two part question.
In most cases when we get this question, the underlying concern is if this spider is poisonous to humans, rather than just if this spider is poisonous.
The truth of the matter is all spiders are venomous, but when it comes to humans they aren’t, or the damage they would do if they bit you, would be a very minor issue.
Many spider’s fangs are so tiny and aren’t even strong enough to pierce human skin. Even though these small spiders were venomous, they couldn’t even bite you in the first place.
In addition to that, some of these spiders are so small in comparison to humans that their venom would just cause anything from no reaction to just a minor irritation rather than a full blown reaction.
Are daddy long legs poisonous?
The Mythbusters even wanted to get in on this one. Many people have said that daddy long leg spiders are the most poisonous spiders in the world, but their legs are too long to bite humans.
This is a tricky one because there are actually 3 different species that are considered “daddy long legs”. Two of them aren’t even spiders to begin with. The Harvestman, the Crane Fly, and the Pholcid House Spider, are the most common creatures called daddy long legs.
The Harvestman and the Crane Fly don’t even have fangs or venom, so those two are out of the running of most venomous spider in the world. The Pholcid House Spider is the one the rumors are about, and these guys do have fangs and venom.
In reality, they fall into the category of fangs thought of as being too weak to bite humans and venom not strong enough to really effect us either. For many years scientists believed that the fangs of daddy long leg spiders wouldn’t even be able to get through human skin, so there wasn’t even a point to try and determine if their venom was poisonous or not.
The Mythbusters sought out to prove this theory and did everything in their power to get bit. Adam Savage, one of the Mythbusters was able to eventually get a daddy long leg spider to bite him, but the results were simply a mild burning sensation for a few seconds and nothing more.
Why people think that daddy long legs are very poisonous
Some reasons why people continue to spread the myth of daddy long leg spiders being very poisonous is that they have been known to feed on some of the most poisonous spiders in the world. They also have a fang structure similar to those of the Brown Recluse spider, which is one of the most poisonous spiders in the world.
The daddy long leg spider has been known to feed on the Red Back spider, which is in the Black Widow family of spiders. In this case, people think that if something eats one of the most poisonous spiders in the world, that spider must be even more poisonous. This just isn’t the case.
Again, even though daddy long leg spiders share similar fang structures and are venomous like a Brown Recluse, the daddy long leg spider rarely bite and even when they do it’s venom was rather mild, especially on humans.
Overall, all true types of spiders are venomous and bite, but they are only venomous to their prey and not humans. Spiders rarely if ever bite humans or aren’t strong enough to pierce human skin to begin with, nor are most spider’s venom strong enough to harm humans either.
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