Can anyone identify these spiders? [scary pics]

Kinda cute.

I hate spiders.

I just killed a Brown Recluse that was crawling next to my hand on my desk.

Color Me Impressed! That thing is scary looking. What is the life span of a large centipede? I have been looking at getting some exotic Mantis recently but it doesn't seem to be a popular hobby.

The jumping ones are really out this time of year around here. I had 2 of them in my livingroom the other day. I hate to off them, since they dont bother humans.. but they creep me out walking above my head.

Black widow is beautiful bro!

mantids are relatively popular and easy to find for sale if you know where to look. i never kept any myself, but i always thought getting some orchid mantids would be sweet. they are really cool looking if you ask me. very pretty bugs.



there are some other stickbugs and mantids that look really crazy too, that's just the one species that always stood out in my mind if i were to get some mantids some day. if you're actually interested hit up some reptile forums, or best arachnoboards.com and visit their buy&sell section. search for "oothecae" which are the little sacks of mantid eggs you can buy. mantids have a relatively short lifespan compared to a lot of invertebrates, so don't be surprised if they only live for a few months ontheir entire life cycle. if you build a good terrarium and allow them the proper conditions to breed you should be able to continue hatching out new generations. some species are easier than others to breed in captivity, driving the prices for certain exotic oothecae quite high. most common species will run you $15-25 per ooth, hatching a dozen or so mantids.

the centipede hobby is generally pretty new, with new species being introduced to hobby trade regularly, some species are absolutely stunning. i had a mau chau, which i've misplaced my pics of, but he was a huge red sucker.

i would love to have a pair of these, but they ran around $600 each last i checked...

First one if google bot and the other is yahoo I think.

some crazy looking spiders in this thread!

That's pretty cool. Kinda like an Arachnaphobia Therapy tool.

:D

Thanks for the info. Orchid Mantis is a really exotic looking species, but as you pointed out short lifespan I have read 9months max. I am going to check out the site though.