Spider story! I work in a warehouse, filling orders. In the space around my work area, quite a few cellar spiders congregate, around the window, the light, and the wall board. There's also a perpetual line of ants (I assume the argentine species), coming in through a hole in the wall.
I generally don't bother any of the spiders, unless their webs start to encroach on my stuff. Well, today I decided that there were too many spiders and too many webs, and I didn't want them spawning any more. So I grabbed a nearly-empty can of Hot Shot Ant and Roach killer, and I went at it.
A quick spurt wiped out the line of ants, and they simply fell off the wall where they had their line. A single spurt per spider had a more interesting effect... They freaked out and started running/climbing away. They moved slowly though, like they were drunk. They couldn't seem to grab their own webs, a few of the bigger ones even got tangled.
After about a minute of writhing, most spiders just curled up and died. One big one though, got stuck in some fine strands of web, and just sat there on the wall. If I fanned it gently with a paper, it would squirm, and then rest again.
As I watched the spider, I saw one of its legs just drop off its body. And then another leg just up and fell off, and then another. At this point I started to feel a bit like a psychopath, so I had to put it out of its little spidery misery.
tl;dr version: Some insect poisons cause cellar spiders' legs to fall off as they die. It's fairly disturbing.
