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Thanks for your very informative post. So it is the rain. I thought Midland was having an invasion of black tarantulas because yesterday afternoon I saw in two incidents tarantulas crossing Highway 80 just west of Loop 250. And INSIDE the post office at the MIA airport was a dead tarantula welcoming us just 3 feet past the entrance.
Pretty big and strong looking. Legs are the size of matchsticks? And about 1 inch high? In my 25 years here in Midland, I've never seen them near town at all.

And by night just 2 hours after those tarantulas, I saw a "BLACK WITCH MOTH" on a wall iluminated with bright fluorescent lamps. I put my face right on it and it wouldn't fly away. On its rested position where it looks like a small bat (diamond shape), wing tip to wing tip it was 6 and 7/8 of an inch. Tail to head, it was 2 and 1/2 inch. Quite small actually compared to moths in other parts of the world, UNTIL I SAW again the pictures at mywesttexas.com AND REALIZED THAT THE BAT SHAPED MOTH CAN OPEN ITS WINGS WHEN IT FLIES AND END UP HAVING 4 WINGS INSTEAD OF 2. I've seen large moths many times before, but this was the first time I've ever put my face and eyes just an inch or so away from it. I don't know if it is true or not, but people have told me that powder from moths will destroy our eyes.

Do you know if the tarantulas we have here have webs? The web of a black widow here in Midland is quite heavy compared to the web of the ordinary spider. I imagine if a tarantula has a web, the silk must be the diameter of a pin 'coz that taruntula looks heavy. If so, I dont think the silk will go up with the wind. But if it can, the strong winds we have here at times can spread the taruntulas everywhere.

Can the baby tarantulas travel via strong winds to distances miles and miles away like other spiders who put their heads down and the tip of their abdomens up, then let go feet and feet of silk into the wind. Soon the wind pulls up enough length of silk into the sky and the baby spider turns around and climbs up the silk. Up up and away the spider goes. Do you know what creatures they find at a height of some 100,000 feet. Not a single bird nor flying insect. WHAT THEY FOUND WERE SPIDERS!!!! Just got above info from TV.

Do you know if the tarantulas in Midland can jump 2 or 3 feet distance? If so, we need to be more cautious. On TV, what I saw was a tarantula waiting for a snake. At the right moment the tarantula jumped 2 to 3 feet distance with a single leap exactly just behind the head of the snake and killed the snake.

Where exactly on the road do you see these snakes sunning themselves? Right at the edge where the asphalt meets the ground? On the asphalt about 1-2 feet from the asphalt/ground edge? On the ground 1-2 feet from the asphalt/ground edge?

Lastly, how come adult rattlesnakes have rattlers while the baby rattlesnakes don't. Don't they know that these toys are supposed to be for the babies???

*shiver* I had a horrid dream last night about snakes and spiders. I didn't have any bad experiences in Texas, but in Cali, our base housing was infested with brown recluses. We had them sprayed when I saw one fall out of the onesie I was about to put on the baby.

Eurasian...good questions. I can't answer all of them, but if you can't find answers online, I suspect that our local expert, Burr Williams, can enlighten you. What I do know is that (1) tarantulas in this area live in holes in the ground, and any webspinning they do is minimal. I suspect that their ground-dwelling habits are why we see them out in larger numbers after a heavy rain. (A mysterious behavior that I forgot to mention is that invariably they are walking from south to north; I don't recall ever seeing them go the opposite direction!) (2) Our brand of tarantula is not a prolific leaper...maybe 6" or so, at best. They are non-aggressive, but will defend themselves if provoked with pretty strong pincers located on the undersides of their bodies. They are not venomous. (3) The sunning snakes tend to be on the asphalt. The live ones are near the edge of the road; those who pick spots further onto the pavement tend to quickly become dead, like the one we passed just this morning.

TulipGirl, those Brown Recluses are *nasty* critters. I would have done what you did in Cali, but only after taking a flamethrower to the room!

I don't remember many problems with BRs when I was growing up, but they are everywhere now. Some sort of ecological shift has occurred, but I'm not sure what.

Why the centipede first? Not a West Texan and don't understand.

Paul, the implication is that the centipede is considered to be more dangerous than the rattlesnake. I guess it depends on your perspective. Centipede stings are rarely fatal (but, then, so are rattler bites), but they are quite painful, and the critters don't give you any warning. They're also more likely to cozy up in your boots overnight.

At least rattlesnakes have some ecological benefit in that they will kill mice and rats. As far as I know, centipedes have no redeeming social value...you can't even make a decent hatband out of them!

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Your observation that tarantulas here in Midland and surrounding cities always go north and never south is what is known in scientific circles as the "ERIC EFFECT" In fact, if people will internet search or google it, they'll find it there in the internet.

I'd like to confirm that all the tarantulas I mentioned in my previous post here, all were going NORTH. Even the dead tarantula at the entrance of the MIA post office was stomped while moving NORTH. For a moment, I thought I saw an exception and you were wrong because I saw a tarantula that same day walking perpendicular to the road. On closer scrutiny, the road was going NORTH SOUTH and the tarantula was walking to the EAST. But as this crablike creature neared me, it turned and went under my car. Guess what??? It was headed NORTH!!!! And it was not due to any flood where water in West Texas everywhere usually goes south or east because the ground was dry everywhere.

I was bitten by a centipede when I was a kid unwinding a rope. I never saw it and thought a snake may have bitten me. But the two sting marks spaced about 1/4 inch apart were right there on my swollen, stinging finger.

The information you gave on snakes, tarantulas and centipedes will come in handy someday, say when fixing a flat. Years ago on the way back from San Angelo, our car overheated. Helplessly looking at the steaming radiator, we watched in horror as this big rattler crossed this asphalt road a hundred feet away, with no fear at all and still looking at us. Maybe he just wanted to say HOWDY

But here is where you are wrong because centipedes do have uses too, especially for human beings. The centipede was killed first because the rancher wanted to show the rattler that he was a friend. Grateful, the snake let down his guard and the rancher whacked him!!! What do you guys think about this explanation?

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To describe an imitation, one technique I learned abroad is simply to repeat the word twice. Hence the pasteur in Ft. Stockton, Texas can simply be described as a "pasture pasture."

yep yep i'm from florida where we have some creepy snakes and other scarry critters but while here in texas about a month ago i was on my bed when a centipede crawled between my calf and my shin and stuck/stung me good, then in a spring like motion sprung all its scale like clawed feet into me...omg all this in like 1/10th a second as i watched in slow motion human time. Then it ran all the way across my king size bed at like 150mph i swear, and got away never to be found to this day. I had a bad headache all night following this sting and my leg broke out in a rash, and my whole body was like itching/tingling. I picked scale like/razor sharp half moons out of my leg for like an hour, some 20 of em...fun fun.. I still have swelling around this bite area now 1 month later. And I swear this creature intentionally bit me, it basically attacked my leg, although i may have initiated it by touching it first unknowingly. It attacked me in return. This was defanately of the scorpious family of creature, an off white color and happily growing its scale razors back somewhere only to attack again... RazinFrazzinCreatureMustDie