The old truism that many of us have heard is that no one is ever more than 5 feet from a spider. Or 3 feet. Or 6 feet. The distance varies but the meaning is clear – spiders are everywhere. Companies performing pest control services in Frisco, TX know that every homeowner will have many, many encounters with spiders in their homes and yards, some painful, most not. How much do you really know about these eight-legged creatures we share space with?
• All spiders produce silk. According to the National Pest Management Association, all 40,000 species of spiders spin silk. Each spider can produce up to seven kinds of silk that serve different purposes from prey immobilization to protection of young to guidelines that spiders use like breadcrumbs to find their way home.
• Females can lay up to 3,000 eggs at a time. The eggs are carried in one or more silk sacs. After they’re born, some females carry their young on their backs and some share prey with them. Other females die soon after birth, which means the young spiders have to fend for themselves.
• Spiders can’t chew. Spiders, like other arachnids, are unable to chew their food so they use the part of their mouth that is shaped like a straw to suck up the liquified insides of their prey.
• Jumping spiders can jump up to 50 times their own length. Jumping spiders, like the gray wall jumper, can change the pressure of the fluid in their legs to give their jumping power a hydraulic boost.
• Spiders are nearsighted. Most spiders have eight eyes while some species, like the brown recluse, have only six. While these are divided up into two sets of eyes with different functions, neither set can see at a distance. In lieu of bad eyesight, spiders have specialized, sensitized hairs on their legs that alert them to sights smell and sounds.
• There are no vegetarian spiders. With the exception of one South American species that is mostly vegetarian but that will eat insects in a pinch, spiders prey on insects and each other.
• Spiders ARE everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. Spiders can be found on every continent on the planet except Antarctica.
Spiders in our homes aren’t necessarily a problem – they serve the purpose of keeping insect populations down. But too much of a good thing can be bad, especially when it means encountering spiders like the brown recluse and the black widow, whose bites can be harmful to humans. When you need pest control services in Frisco, TX, call us at Bug Commander Pest Control at (214) 307-1933 to make an appointment to have one of our technicians inspect your home for spiders. And visit us online to find out more about our spider control services.