Oh. I am ignorant when it comes to bugs. But I know they weren't those jolly, fat, black ones that look sort of like this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:E...sfloridana.jpg
They had yellowish-brown stripes and their bodies were more elongated, and they made these sighing sssssss noises.
Are there other species of roaches that can make noises?

Those must have been American Cockroaches, also known as "Palmetto Bugs" or "Water Bugs" by people who don't want to admit they have roaches: "Oh heavens, no, we've NEVER had cockroaches in this place! Now, we do occasionally see a Palmetto Bug or two, but no roaches!" That species is really large, too, and can fly. They can make a slight hissing noise with their wings, especially if a large number of them are present. Their claws can make noise on surfaces like wood, too.

pitbulllady

Aaaah! Thank you for informing me with new knowledge.

That would have been an Orb Weaver of some sort, probably Araneus diadamatus, NOT a Brown Recluse. Brown Recluse spiders have these sloppy, very "abstract" webs that they spin in corners and underneath things, rather than those big aerial webs with that classic shape. There's nothing "elaborate" about a Brown Recluse web. ALso, they are not very large at all, and their "violin" marking is DARK, not white, and located on their carapace around and just behind their eyes. Brown Recluse spiders do not have white on them at all, and their hair is very, very short, barely visable even in macro photographs. Here is a really good macro(close-up)of a Brown Recluse that appeared yesterday on Deviant Art, taken by an entomologist. She is missing a front leg, but you can see that characteristic "violin", the short, fine hair, and the characteristic eye arrangment-these spiders only have six eyes, which are arranged in three pairs in such a way as to resemble a human face, with the "nose" being the middle pair of eyes. If you live within the range of the Recluse species, it's a good idea to know how to recognize them. Brown Recluse spiders are almost always found INDOORS, by the way.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/43184263/

pitbulllady

Whaaa....that looks similar to a common house spider!!! Eep. Actually, recluses ARE house spiders, I would guess, since they like the indoors.
PBL do you know exactly where they live? Any chance of these things being in New Jersey?

AAAAAUUUGHHHH!!!

Madagascar hissing cockroaches always make me think of the ones fashion designers sell, with little jewels all over them, at $80 a pop. Crazy.

No, they are not in New Jersey. Recluse spiders are a Southern and Midwestern spider. They actually don't look like Common House Spiders at all, IF by "Common House Spider" you mean this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/DSCF0389.jpg

This is Archaranea tepidariorum, what's called a "Common House Spider" in the US. It looks completely different from a Brown Recluse-different body shape(these are very fat and rounded, like a BB), patterned legs and abdomen, and they are not dangerous to humans at all. They will kill and eat Brown Recluses, though.

pitbulllady

That's the best news I've heard all day! LOL Glad to know there are other spiders who will "help" us in getting rid of more dangerous arachnids like that Brown Recluse.

I've found that the best defense against venomous spiders are OTHER spiders, many of which actually specialize in eating other spider species. "Black House Spiders"Kukulcania hibernalis, a sort of "tarantula wannabe", will often eat Black Widows. Black Widow venom apparently has no effect on them, while I've never known a K. hibernalis to bite a human unless it mistook a finger for a bug, which happened to me last year. I was poking around the web burrow of one of these, and got tagged on the end of my index finger. It felt like a mosquito bite, just not quite as itchy, and within fifteen minutes I could not even find where I'd been bitten, and it was a BIG spider, too. The spider had clearly been lying in ambush down in her den, waiting for something to stumble across her "trip wires" of silk outside, and just ran out and grabbed without first checking to see what it was. I swear, if she could speak, she would have been doing a pretty darn good impression of Wilt afterwards-"OH, I am SOOOO sorry, I didn't know...I am REALLY sorry! I'll just go back inside and punish myself for that, if that's OK!" I've held that same spider in my hand without so much as a nip, so I know it was an accident and was entirely my own fault.

pitbulllady

does washington state get Recluse spiders?