One of
evolution's greatest success stories. There are spiders all over the world, and the oldest known fossil spider is 380 million years old. Spiders are eight-legged and carnivorous, use silk in a variety of ways depending on the species. Many spin cobwebs to catch prey, larger spiders line the edge of their burrows with web. The bolas spider is named because it throws a line of web ending in a sticky
lump to catch prey. Spiders inspire fear and revulsion, quite undeserved, but probably not helped by years of movies telling us spiders are humanity's enemies. Schools are not much more helpful. I still remember a science
teacher telling us a black widow was the size of a
human hand, which is rubbish. There are some dangerously venomous spiders, like widow spiders, funnelweb spiders, brown recluse spiders and brazilian wandering spiders, but they are a tiny minority of the huge number of spiders in the world. Just to
drag some widely-held beliefs into the
light of
reality:
1: Spiders are not watching you. Most, apart from some jumping spiders, have very poor eyesight.
2: Spiders do not come out of plug-holes. A spider in the bath has fallen down there and can't get out due to the bath's slippery sides.
3: Large hairy spiders are not automatically dangerous. In fact nobody has ever died from a tarantula bite.
4: Women are not automatically scared of spiders. In fact most of the calls the
British Tarantula
Society gets regarding fear of spiders are from worried men.
Hysterical
person: Help! I saw a spider! I'm not going to
bed! It might be there waiting for me!
Other person: What makes you think any self-respecting spiders would want to get into your
bed?
