Spiders in India

neuromouse

Hi,

my girlfriend and me are visiting India in november/december. She is deadly affraid of spiders, and I have read some parts of India are home to some Tarantula species. What is the probability we will run into some big hairy thing? What parts of India should we avoid?

Are there any other poisonous spiders in India?

jyotirmoy

Where did you read about Tarantulas in India?
Small spiders crawling about on the walls is quite a common sight and these spiders are harmless.

Nick-H

The spiders here are smaller than the ones I used to see in Cornwall, UK.

The small running, jumping spiders (maybe the ones Jyoti means) are pretty innocuous.

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jyotirmoy

Yes Nick I meant those.
They generally greet you saying "Welcome to my parlour"

neuromouse

I read it on Wikipedia:
List_of_spiders_of_India

According to this, there are 51 different species of Tarantula (Family Theraphosidae) in India
Hope I did not scare any of you living there
like this one in Western Ghats:
Annandaliella_travancorica

But I guess they are not so common to meet any?

jyotirmoy

Fear not neuromouse.

Haylo

I have to admit that as a former arachnophobe I opened this thread with some trepidation!

Silly as it sounds, the little ones are okay and I am not bothered by tarantualas, they are SO big and furry that I can see them as a bit like mice with too many legs.

The things that freak me out are "bath spiders", I'm not going looking for a pic but Nick will know what I mean - and I am VERY happy to hear that In dian house spiders sound smaller than that.

kullukid

[quote=Jyotirmoy]Where did you read about Tarantulas in India?
QUOTE]

Well i met some real mother's in Naggar a few yrs back, Im talking the size of a dinner plate Jyoti Da, remind me to tell you the full story when i see you.

These were "Bucket bath" spiders, there i was stood in the Nak,i'd just shampooed my hair & the soap was in my eyes, I was just about to scoop some more water out of the bucket, but something made me peep out of my soapy eyes.....& there it was the biggest spider i've ever seen anywhere,one leg was hooked on the side of the bucket trying to climb out,with it's legs stretched out it was more or less the size of the bucket I'll have to stop now, it's becoming too traumatic just typing about it...all i'll say is there was more than one of the mothers & they ran at me not away! KK

neuromouse

And how big would the small spiders be?

nosianai

Size of a thumbnail. Keep a cat. Mine loves those jumpy little toys. Gives him five min playtime before he stomps them with his paw. Hugely entertaining.

ananda2193

And don't forget about the centipedes and scorpions and.....

neuromouse

How often do you see those? And what size? And what parts of India?

machadinha

<cross-posting>

All I know is there's a lot of confusion and misclassification going on regarding tarantulas, possibly aided by the use of the name as a generic term in English vs., or including, in other languages.

Not every big hairy spider is a tarantula (or then maybe they are in English?), and not every big hairy spider is deadly poisonous -- nor is every deadly poisonous spider big and hairy. (Nor is every spider we call a tarantula equally big or hairy or poisonous -- confusing, isn't it?) Finally, far from all poisonous spiders are aggressive, many may be rather scared of you.

Sorry, that still doesn't answer your question I'll bet there exist poisonous spiders in India, they well may in Slovenia.* I never heard they form any sort of problem to be reckoned with though.

I guess going to the tropics it's best to be prepared to have to face some creepy-crawlies, then again, you probably do at home too. If you're really phobic, I guess this might be a real issue. Maybe it can be (partly) avoided by opting for a higher class of travel, I don't know. (Spiders don't tend to take much notice of their level of accommodation though.) If that sounds like you'll be up to your neck in insects as a budget traveler, you won't be. It never registered as any sort of problem to me.

Good luck with it in any case.

* (The "real" tarantulas are Mediterranean wolf spiders btw, they might well extend into your area. Reading up on this a little, apparently these have been found to be non-dangerous to humans though. It is now thought the dangerous bite was delivered by the small Mediterranean black widow (found from Spain to Central Asia & said by one report to be able to kill a camel), however the more visible wolf spider took the blame, and with the process of colonization the name was extended to include any tropical big & hairy-looking spider the colonists ran into.

Yaya, you learn something new every day )

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ananda2193

I was trying to be funny, though they do exist. I've never seen a scorpion in India, but I heard the red ones are deadly. I guess they hang out where the soil is red. Saw some centipedes in Goa. Their not deadly but have a nasty bite. Saw a cobra once up at Kausani in the Himalayas. Don't recall seeing spiders, though I must have as their common creatures in all countries.

One time in Venezuela there were some huge spiders on the walls in my room and I slept with the light on thinking that they wouldn't come down to my bed if they thought I could see them.

And I'm sure spiders and scorpions and the like are everywhere in India. Maybe Ladakh is one of the only places that could be devoid of these little creatures.

Most of India is in the tropics, so you find these things in places like that. It goes with the territory.

MonkeyQueen

i was bitten at night by what i suspect was a spider, it looked like a mosquito bite the first day & although i didnt scratch it, it turned into a huge, nasty, itchy, scaby, swollen infection... im ok now, i only used boroline antiseptic cream & now its almost gone