'Rick Vetter MS's credibility just sank with me. He says "such ludicrously inhospitable places as Canada and Alaska , which has the definite implication that spiders do not/cannot live in Alaska. And yet we know that other spiders do live in Alaska; I've seen them in the woods and around outbuildings, and certainly plenty of them in homes. If SOME spiders can live in Alaska why can't others? Or is there a tropical component to spider life?

Off the subject but I just remembered: In Virginia where I lived as a girl I once took away a piece of wood from a woodpile, exposing a hairy spider which literally shook and jumped up and down. I was astonished. Does anyone know what kind that would have been? The closest thing I could think of was a tarantula but it was a great deal smaller.