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Michael Wienecke 0:00
Welcome to another episode of pesky pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham Hoover Vestavia hills, mountain Brook Halina, Alabaster, Pelham, and all other surrounding areas. Hey, so today I want to talk about the wolf spider otherwise known as fake brown recluse spider.
Travis McGowin 0:25
No, definitely. It’s one of the most, I would say, falsely identified spiders. You know, here in our area, I mean it. They’re everywhere. For starters, I know outdoors around my own personal house, there seems to be a very large population of them. And they’re often very, very well miss identified as being a brown recluse when really they’re just playing a wolf spider.
Michael Wienecke 0:52
Yeah, and, you know, just on looks alone, I mean, the wolf spider is a pretty creepy looking spider, you know, it varies. It can be kind of blackish dark brown tan, has, you know, that, that coloration on it. And that’s why and Harry and Harry and sometimes carrying its babies on its back, which is just kind of a freaky looking looking site. So and
Travis McGowin 1:15
I think that that’s one of the facts that most people don’t appreciate at all, is when they do go to squish one. And then, you know, looks like the ground around, it starts moving because there’s all these babies going everywhere. And it does it freaks people out for sure.
Michael Wienecke 1:29
Oh, yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Well, let’s talk about like, where this spider, you know, kind of calls home. You know, I know, we see a lot of them around Birmingham. Just you know, woodpiles piled up rocks, play houses, cinnamon sandboxes, you know, where the water meter is, you know, sometimes we’ll check there and treat that area as well. So, on the outside, that’s, that’s where we see a lot of Wolf Spiders,
Travis McGowin 1:58
you know, another another place that’s often neglected that you see them, I have actually had several customers who had brand new pine straw put into landscaping around the outside of their home. And when I tell you that I went to do the, you know, the service for those customers, and the amount of Wolf Spiders of different, you know, life stages and sizes that came out of that pine straw during the treatment was just impressive. And you know, the customer had already told me that they were having an issue with the wolf spiders, and it was almost like, whereas I doubt that the pond straw itself was brought in with Wolf Spiders, that apparently was an attractive location for them to be in the customer’s yard. So that’s one thing to consider when you’re doing your landscaping around your house.
Michael Wienecke 2:45
Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. And just, you know, biggest thing is, as far as preventing Wolf Spiders from being around your house, another thing we didn’t talk about is you know, where they live in your house. Very similar to the brown recluse spider, you know, they cracks, crevices, crawlspace attics, you know, around windows kind of anywhere that there’s going to be a good food source for them to hunt at nighttime when they come out of those cracks and crevices. So yeah, and
Travis McGowin 3:11
I’m, you know, I’m glad you mentioned nighttime, another little kind of cool fact about them as if you walk outside at night in the dark. And you take a flashlight or something like that, and you shine it down towards the ground in an area where there’s Wolf Spiders, they have iridescence to their eyes, you know, they’ve got really good night vision. They they’re primarily nighttime hunters. And if you look close enough, there’ll be two, you know, a couple little teeny tiny eyes with an iridescence to them on the ground. And those are Wolf Spiders.
Michael Wienecke 3:41
Yeah, yeah, it is. That’s a freaky sight, but a cool one at the same time. So yeah, so
Travis McGowin 3:46
yeah, I mean, if you’re if you’re freaked out by spiders, probably not the best part. But let me ask you, Michael. So if, if by chance you were to come into contact with a little spider and it was to bite you, what could somebody expect? Yeah, so
Michael Wienecke 4:02
we’ll spider wolf spider bite is really harmless. You know, the, they’re not poisonous to us. One of the only concerns is, you know it, it obviously is going to break the skin. So if you don’t keep it clean, you can’t get an infection from that or you know, have to have to see a doctor that way. But as far as poisonous or you know, kind of like the brown recluse it’s not going to, you know, rot your your flesh or anything like that.
Travis McGowin 4:28
Well, definitely an unsightly spider. People don’t like seeing them but relatively harmless.
Michael Wienecke 4:34
That’s right. Thank you for listening to the pesky pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. If you have any questions about what we’ve discussed today, please give us a call at 205-470-8161 and ask for me Michael wyniki. I’ll be happy to speak with you anytime. And don’t forget to share this podcast with your friends and subscribe to us on Apple, Amazon, Google and Spotify. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
