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07/03/2022

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21/02/2022

With venom that's 15 times more forceful than that of a rattlesnake, the black widow is the most dangerous spider in North America. The (slightly) good news? Though the compact arachnid is highly harmful, most people who are bitten only experience things like muscle aches and nausea rather than death.

21/02/2022

If you're in the right place at the right time—or wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how you look at it—you might just hear a slight purr coming from a Gladicosa gluosa. This species of spider uses vibrations to court its mate. And while they can't actually hear anything, the vibrations produce a soft purring sound that can be heard by humans. Lucky us.

21/02/2022

Most arachnophobes are able to take solace in the fact that spiders are rather solitary. (After all, one tiny spider is no match for a giant human shoe.) But that's not always the case. As many people have had to find out the hard way, certain species—like Anelosimus eximius—are much more social, and they prefer to form giant colonies with giant communal webs. No thank you!

21/02/2022

Cockroaches and mice aren't the only creepy critters you have to worry about in the big city. Per one Australian study, certain types of spiders like Nephila plumipes are not only more abundant in urban spaces, but they also tend to grow bigger in highly populated areas with hard, concrete surfaces and little vegetation.

21/02/2022

When researchers from Ben-Gurion University analyzed individuals' size perception of various animals both loved and loathed, they found that "highly fearful participants overestimated the spider size." The study showed that emotions—and more specifically, fear—can influence a person's perception of relatively objective traits, like size. As if being afraid of spiders isn't bad enough, now you're also growing them in your mind!

21/02/2022

Tarantulas might look soft to the touch, but trust us, you don't want to reach out and give them a pet. Ninety percent of New World tarantulas—or those found in North and South America—have several different types of urticating hairs, which can become irritatingly embedded in the skin when the spider feels threatened.

21/02/2022

Red widows tend to show their affection for one another in a rather… unique manner. Michael Miller, an animal keeper at the Smithsonian's National Zoo, told Smithsonian Insider that it is not uncommon for the male red widow to force feed himself to his female partner "by placing himself into her mandibles." Even creepier, the reason why the spiders do this is still greatly up for debate.

21/02/2022

If you thought that relocating to Mars would put you at a safe distance from spiders, think again. NASA has shown via several experiments that orb-weaving spiders are able to adapt to life on the International Space Station. Recently, they even found that jumping spiders can successfully survive without gravity.

21/02/2022

Evidently, you don't need ears to be able to hear. One species of jumping spider called Phidippus audax uses specialized hairs that detect particle movement. As a result, they can "hear" from at least 10 feet away, according to one study published in Current Biology. And this is just one of the arachnid's many strengths. The creepy crawler also has superb sight, vibration perception, and the ability to jump up to 50 times its body length.

21/02/2022

A few years ago, Australian residents reported seeing millions of spiders seemingly falling from the sky. That wasn't the first time "spider rain" happened, nor will it be the last.

Rick Vetter, a retired arachnologist, explained that this "rain" is actually just one of the methods spiders use to get around. "Ballooning is a not-uncommon behavior of many spiders," he told LiveScience. "They climb some high area and stick their butts up in the air and release silk. Then they just take off. This is going on all around us all the time."

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