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Movember is for Mo-rachnids

18 Nov

Manly men and spiders with ‘staches

In contrast to the spider-fearing citizens of Britain, spiders themselves do keep a stiff upper lip. It’s called a clypeus (CLIP-ee-us) and is defined as the area between the front edge of the carapace and the anterior eyes—a mustache zone, you might say.

On many spiders there isn’t much going on in the clypeus, but among salticids, or jumping spiders, there’s often a patch of lush facial fur. Salticids overflow with charms, even for the spider-averse, among other things because they have faces that actually look like faces, with a few extra eyes at the corners. The cowboy handlebars and day-glo beards (even Afros!) are just another endearing bonus. Seeing as how this is Movember, a month whimsically dedicated to growing a mustache to draw attention to men’s health issues, I thought of this particular bewhiskered spider. Like males of all species, he’s no stranger to challenges of the guy variety.

Let it grow! The rakishly mustachioed Lapsias lorax, collected by Wayne Maddison and crew in Ecuador in 2000. (Photo © Univ. of British Columbia)

Let it grow! The rakishly mustachioed Lapsias lorax, collected by Wayne Maddison and crew in Ecuador in 2000. (Photo © Univ. of British Columbia)

Lapsias lorax won its name in a contest hosted two years ago by the Beaty Biodiversity Museum in Vancouver, B.C. The Beatty is just jumping with spiders, and is the home base of an arachnological legend, Wayne Maddison. If you’ve spent any time at all on the Internet, and everybody knows you have, you’ve seen Maddison’s videos of jumping spider courtship dances. The vids that all you wacky kids overlay with music soundtracks—everything from disco to house to smoove tunes. A veritable “Stayin’ Alive” with the dance floor measured in millimeters. Top that, digital kittens.

The way those determined little dudes shimmy and wave and waggle! It’s hilarious and touching and gives the average male human some food for thought about the many ways he may have appeared, and perhaps daily appears, a fool for love. Boz Scaggs may, or may not, have dedicated his album Silk Degrees to these silk-spinning horndogs.

Maddison oversaw the contest to name this new species of jumping spider, which he and his colleagues had discovered in Ecuador. Maddison picks up new species the way most of us pick up the mail, because he makes a habit of traveling to places where the wild things are. According to the Beaty site, he received 810 entries. No, I didn’t win.

The winning idea came from a Canadian who thought the golden band below the mystery spider’s face—more of a slinky, pencil-thin mustache than the usual salticid bottlebrush, also more properly on his jaws than his clypeus—resembled that of the Lorax, Dr. Seuss’s treehugging hero in the book of the same name. (Sharp observation, Tristan Long! Next time I shall defeat you.) It also pleased the spider judges that the spider’s name evokes a desire to protect threatened environments, many of them the wild places Maddison likes to explore.

Dr. Seuss's Lorax. The spider's better groomed, in my opinion.

Dr. Seuss’s Lorax. The spider’s better groomed, in my opinion.

So there you have it—one of the many mustachioed spiders to strike a hairy note for Movember. Incidentally, the mustache doesn’t make the man, not among spiders. The real way to tell this spider is male is the shape of his pedipalps, those extremities below his face. The palps are built like a smaller set of legs, with one fewer segment. Among mature males the tips look like boxing gloves, dramatically different from the trim, sleek palps females have.

They’re shaped that way for mating. They are the key that fits the lock. A receptacle at the end holds sperm that the spider has previously placed on a special web and then taken up as if by syringe. Then he goes looking for the right female (that’s what that dancing is really for! not fame and glory and a trophy, but to signal in song and dance, “Love me! Don’t eat me!”). What happens next is kind of like a handshake, at least on his end, and kind of not. And it’s not on the courtship videos. Leave some room for romance, bro.

 
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Posted by on November 18, 2013 in Netlore, Salticidae (jumping spiders), Spider science

 

Fruit Ninjas: Spiders in the Bananas

05 Nov

Aren’t you glad it wasn’t a dragonfruit?

This is about bananas and “banana spiders,” a slippery concept. I vowed not to make any wordplay on the words “bunch,” “go(ing) bananas,” or “appeal,” because those are hideous journalistic clichés. You’ll thank me.

I did slip in that “slippery,” but I had to, honest.

A mum's worst nightmare, only with spiders. (Scary banana sculpture by Suu, a Japanese artist. You should see his Ben Bernanke!)

A mum’s worst nightmare–just add spiders. (Scary banana sculpture by Suu, a Japanese artist. You should see his or her Ben Bernanke!)

What’s fun about chasing down the latest spider scares is discovering that any such story has happened before—usually many times. Better, the story changes. There are certain structures to any “I was scared by a spider” story, like the one where you crash your car, or the one where you need an explanation for a scary sore, or the one where your man proves he’s not a coward. But in general the trends or the public mood allow you to fill in many of the nouns and verbs and places, like some kind of arachnophobic Mad Libs book.

Like this:

(Location) homemaker (proper name) was terrified to discover this week that the healthy (fruit or vegetable) she’d brought home from the supermarket and was about to serve her (numeral) offspring was infested by the world’s most deadly (usually harmless arachnid).

(Proper name) was washing the (foodstuff) when she found the (synonym for dead, mangled, or stunned) spider in a bowl and (word for emitted loud, high-pitched sound). She summoned her (male relative) to strenuously (verb) the beast and phoned the local (unprepared exterminator), who confirmed the (adjective)-eating creature’s identity and insisted on (violent verb with “-ing”) her home.

A spokesman for the supermarket chain expressed sympathy for (name)’s traumatic experience and offered her a free (trivial item meant to forestall a lawsuit).

Today’s story is out of Britain, where they’re already prepared to burn with flame any creature with eight legs, on the theory that it must be one of those cottage-invading, mum-murdering, flesh-eating, snapper-stabbing false widows (Steatoda nobilis). That particular cobweb spider readily turns invisible and assumes disguises wherein it looks like other, equally harmless spiders. It’s quite a trick! I wish I could see it.

(I take back some of what I’ve said about British arachnophobics. I can tell from some of the Facebook warriors and other online commenters that many British people are disgusted and embarrassed by the current spider hysteria. Then there are the good people at the British Arachnological Society, whose site is second to none on getting the spider facts straight.)

Spiders are NOT part of this healthy breakfast.

Spiders are NOT part of this healthy breakfast.

(It’s also come to my attention that I may have maligned Weetabix. I sincerely regret any hurt feelings I might have caused.)

But bananas now: in the current variation on Horror in the Fruit Bowl, a London mum was shocked to see baby spiders hatching from the peel of a banana. Spiderlings were emerging from a “white spot” (photos show an egg sac) that she first thought was mold. Trigger-happy reporters promptly plastered websites with stock photos of Phoneutria, a New World wandering spider with a bad bite. Apparently the woman and her plucky pest-control company leaped to the conclusion that the baby spiders were Phoneutria, and from there it devolved into a story about 1. How much the supermarket was going to pay to calm everybody down, and 2. Just how much napalm it would take to wipe out every form of life in the customer’s house, children excepted.

The little ankle-biters (but probably not).

The little ankle-biters (but probably not).

One problem. These were baby spiders. They look pretty much alike. Even an expert can’t tell a baby Phoneutria from a baby Cupiennius, which is a much more likely fruit stowaway, at least to North America, according to this expert report. And Cupiennius is harmless. Big and scary, but harmless.  (Anyway, “A baby spider doesn’t have big enough jaws to bite you,” British entomologist Steven Falk told ABC News.)

Also big, fast, and scary looking are huntsman spiders. They hitchhike in bananas, too, and show up in fruit bowls. And are also harmless except to the arachnophobic, which, to be fair, is lots of folks.

Regardless of species, the spiderlings wouldn’t get far on foot. Nor are they likely to survive away from their home climate. All mum needed to do was vacuum them up. Once in the Dirt Devil bag, they won’t be breeding or murdering or doing anything else.

It's the mustache! Really. Those red jaws belong to Cupiennius chiapanensis (photo from American Entomologist), who gets confused with Phoneutria, another red-'stached spider with a bad reputation. But all they have in common is that banana.

It’s the mustache! Really. Those red jaws belong to Cupiennius chiapanensis (photo from American Entomologist), who gets confused with Phoneutria, another red-‘stached spider with a bad reputation. But all they have in common is the banana.

Not long ago, if a spider showed up invited in a UK fruit bowl it was often given the benefit of the doubt, i.e., not assumed to be the world’s deadliest anything. You can see it in older stories like this, this, this (with the wonderful headline “Where Is Mummy Spider?”) and this. It still bothered the fruit-buying public to find them, but nobody worried it was the start of Arachnoworld War III. They went ahead with tea and biscuits.

But the “false widow” meme seems to have escalated every spider encounter by a jittery public. The postman won’t deliver your mail because a fat, harmless orb weaver is dangling across his path. Someone’s bunny dies (as they do), and because a spider is in the neighborhood, it must be to blame. Spiders are described as leaping and chasing, which they just don’t do. A false widow couldn’t outrun a baby carriage with three missing wheels.

The supermarket chain dug a little deeper into the London story and now leans toward the theory that the spiderlings were harmless Cheiracanthium babies, according to ABC. The so-called yellow sac spider lives all over the world—occasionally it bites, but it never kills. (In my house we call it the “glow in the dark spider” because of its pallor.) But in the end, according to ABC, the store paid the scared shoppers a bunch of money.

 

 
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Posted by on November 5, 2013 in Cheiracanthium (sac spiders), Envenomation, Myths and Calumnies, Netlore, Steatoda (false widows)

 

Spiders Over the White Cliffs of Dover

25 Oct

Whither the widows?

First, false widows—now gay spiders. And watch out for those hobos. What is this soap opera called arachnology?

A ridiculous reality show is still playing out in the south of Britain. An insignificant spider, Steatoda nobilis, is being blamed for everything the tabloids can throw at it. I thought the story had peaked a few weeks ago, with the report that one of these Invisible Spiders (because that’s what they really are; nobody ever sees himself getting bitten) had caused a guy’s leg “to explode.” But no—the nonsense can pile up higher still.

Killer spiders, tabloid coverNow the giddiness has caused a school to close. (No worries, Brits, I’m sure all the Singaporean school children who didn’t stay home that day will eat your kids’ lunches for them, academically speaking.) There are whole platoons, brigades, of “mums” who talk about sparing their downy children from the beasties that come creeping, crawling, and snapping their way. TV hosts show helpful maps with neon arrows pointing in all directions—the spider on the march. The usual minor athlete (yes! this is another recurring theme in spider lore, the Jock with a Rash) has to sit out a crucial match because an Invisible Spider spoiled his cricket swing or his soccer moves.

I can’t gild this lily—it  stands alone. Even the calm people at the British Arachnological Society, who have been doing great work trying to drag old Blighty back toward reality, seem resigned to the fact that although they’ll get quoted here and there, they’ll make not a dent in the national arachnofoolia. It just has to play itself out.

S. nobilis has been in Britian since the 1870s. Yes, really. It looks like three other insignificant relatives, all of them prettily weaving silk doilies around Grandmum’s vegetable patch since Churchill was a lad. One day your cottage garden is a veritable Narnia of humble little animals, the next, thanks to tabloid hunger, it’s a den of deadly invaders swarming young Nigel.

So what to do? Fun as it is to see those shabby scriveners go at it, this could happen anywhere. There’s plenty of nonsense about spiders bubbling away Stateside. Not just the brown recluse fears, which a la Britain become active every time some American sprouts an ugly sore. The murky accusation against the hobo spider (Eratigena agrestis, its new name) is just as alive as ever, despite dogged research that shows, bit by unreported bit, that the hobo has almost certainly been misjudged. Its bite is probably harmless. If you can even find one. Or identify it.

How many strikes do you get again? That’s three. Hobo spider, you’re benched.

There’s an information avalanche about spiders online, so we already know that weeping skin wounds are far more likely to be staph or some other rotten microorganism or insect than a spider bite. That’s the scary part—we already know.

Now we’re getting into the realm of why people want to believe nonsense, and why facts don’t drive it out.

Here’s a great book by Kathryn Schulz. She could also have titled it “A Breath of Fresh Error.”

Kathryn Schulz doesn't talk about spiders, per se. I think. I could be wrong. "Yes," she says. "That's the idea."

Kathryn Schulz doesn’t write about spiders. I think. I could be wrong. “Yes,” she says encouragingly. “That’s the idea.”

I started off resisting the author’s mission, which is to point out that everyone is wrong a whole lot but that’s not necessarily bad. Nooooooo! I want to be right all the time, or at least be able to lean back on a nice haystack of facts and studies and enjoy gazing down at the bullshit.

But.

She’s right. Beliefs guide our selection of, and adherence to, what we’re pleased to call facts. Most of the time. I think the scientific method is much more marvelous and error-correcting than she apparently does–if it’s correctly applied, self-policed, and wielded with humility. Like this hobo spider study, which disproved the venom myth from three different directions without scolding anybody who felt otherwise.

But facts fight a constant headwind of uncertainty. The culture you were born into. What your family taught you. What you feel forced to defend (“Call me an idiot because I think Invisible Spiders got my baby? Now I believe it twice as hard!”). And all the little tripwires that trigger us into seeing patterns where they aren’t, ignoring patterns we don’t want to see, trusting our lying senses, and sealing our evidence behind high walls of Just Because.

Now I’m gonna look into those gay spiders.

 

 
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Posted by on October 25, 2013 in Envenomation, Myths and Calumnies, Netlore, Steatoda (false widows)

 

CRITTER SITS, BRIT SPLITS

11 Oct

Stiff upper lips missing in action

It’s official: the last Briton capable of stepping outdoors has now surrendered to spider hysteria and barricaded himself inside his thatched cottage with a lifetime supply of Weetabix and oolong. This just in:

Postman refuses to deliver letter because of a ‘massive’ spider web blocking path to front door

Postmen often have to keep an eye out for aggressive dogs while trying to make their deliveries.

But rather than a hound, it was a large spider that stopped letters being delivered to the home of Stuart Robertson-Reed.

Instead of a cheque the business analyst was waiting for, he found a note written by a scared postman which read: “No access – massive spider web in front gate.”

Stuart Robertson-Reed contemplates his doom! (Daily Mirror)

Stuart Robertson-Reed contemplates his doom! (Daily Mirror)

The story goes on in hilarious (and, thankfully, skeptical) detail about the “massive” beast whose web the postman feared to touch. The spider in question, the timid orb weaver pictured here, was described as the size of a 10p coin–just about an inch in diameter.

Actually, I think the wailing and breast-beating over Steatoda nobilis, the insignificant yet somehow “deadly” spider that’s triggered so much blithering such as this, is peaking. Even the tabloids can’t keep up the silliness much longer.

Nothing in all the coverage I’ve seen of the false-widow panic has changed my mind about what’s happening. S. nobilis, an imported species, has lived on the Sceptered Isle for more than a hundred years. Nobody has ever died from its bite–in fact, I’m still hunting for irrefutable evidence of any bites at all. There was the guy with the hoodie, who had a dozen stinging welts on his back and says he found a spider in his jacket. He made the news because he passed out cold when he saw the spider, not because the venom had liquefied him. Painkillers was all he needed. But I never found a second-day story with a confirmed identification of the spider. Even if it was S. nobilis, how much more trivial can a story be: “man bitten by bug”? I had a hundred worse experiences with ants when I was a kid, and a smaller but still memorable number with wasps, hornets, and bees. I got chomped by lizards, snakes, rodents, and mosquitoes. The tabloids never came calling.

The rest of the S. nobilis victims “never felt a thing” or were assaulted–as if by space aliens–while they slept. Amazing how many Invisible Spiders they can fit on that green and pleasant land.

No, what’s happening here is folklore in the making. A decade from now, after the Internet has immortalized all our foibles and silly beliefs, we’ll all have a gruff chortle with the good people of Britain about the Year of the Rampaging False Widows. There will never be an end to the modern equivalent of the tarantella hysteria, of course. That hard-wired threat detector that keeps us pattern-seeking apes alive will never be silenced–nor, I guess, should it be. But it will be some other bug’s turn to be the witch of the moment.

Ten pence for your thoughts? Let's be a little more lion and little less lamb, folks.

Ten pence for your thoughts? Let’s be a little more lion and a little less lamb, folks.

 
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Posted by on October 11, 2013 in Envenomation, Myths and Calumnies, Netlore, Steatoda (false widows)

 

A Prayer for Araneus

09 Oct

Wheels within wheels

I’m not a Hindu or a Buddhist and never will be. But I have borrowed something from them and I’m not sorry. It’s a word and a shape:

Mandala (Sanskrit:  Maṇḍala, ‘circle’) is a spiritual and ritual symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, representing the Universe. (Wikipedia)

With eight legs, is yoga easier or harder? (Photo by Thomas Quine)

With eight legs, is yoga easier or harder? (Photo by Thomas Quine)

It’s also a spiderweb. Not every mandala you see on the Internet looks spidery, but they all suggest the identical cosmic micro-focus—the radial lines and paths, the corners and turning points, the mystery of who waits in the center, the truth that something barely there and supremely beautiful will blow away tomorrow. But endure. Mandalas guide the quest for insight.

Dr. Internet says mandalas are visual signposts in the Christian view too—some people see sacred spirals in rose windows and Celtic crosses. They’re even found in Jung’s overgrown garden of myth.

A spider doesn’t care what psychologists or monks think about circles and spirals. The first principle that leads a spider around her spinning wheel is simple hunger—or even, deeper than hunger, unremembered memories from spiders eons older who were hungry, and who turned within webs, and lived. She doesn’t know beauty or utility. She knows food and unimaginable patience. A week before the Bodhi tree would be less than a wink from her unblinking eyes.

Nice work! (Cool hat, too.) Can you keep doing it for a couple million years now?

Nice work! (Cool hat, too.) Can you keep doing it for a couple million years now?

The remote being at the center—we can never know how she gauges the physical strains, and measures the yawning canyons she has to bridge, and chooses her materials and gates, and pivots and dances to draw that silken mandala—the one that’s more perfect for being imperfect.

A machine could draw a perfect circle. But an orb web unique to its place, unique to its hour, then destroyed and forgotten … that’s art and science, devotion … futility.

So I meditate on the mandala in my yard, and the mute worker who labors over it. I suppose I have to call it meditation, damn the woo. If that’s not enough to dazzle my brain shut, I repeat these words: four hundred million years. Four hundred million years. The lives of this animal, this adept.

Nirvana by porchlight? Araneus marmoreus, seeking enlightenment near Crittendon, Kentucky.

Nirvana by porchlight? Araneus marmoreus, seeking enlightenment near Crittenden, Kentucky. Maybe illustrating that thing about one hand clapping? We’ll never know. (Photo by Barbara Marshman)

 
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Posted by on October 9, 2013 in Araneus (orb weavers)

 

<3 Bugs, h8 Spiders

17 Sep

Warning: big old spider picture BOO!

Rick Vetter, the quotable spider guy who keeps tabs on the brown widows (spreading) and brown recluses (nonexistent) of Southern California, has a fun article in American Entomologist. The topic sounds as if it was born from a lifetime of forehead-slapping: why are there spider-hating entomologists? An entomologist studies insects, and I know spiders aren’t insects. Still, you’d think professional courtesy at the very least would cause entomologists not to indulge in any of the hyperventilating, car-wrecking, weapons-fetching behavior you see on the Internet when some schmo encounters a spider.

Like the lady in this picture at right. Ooo, sour face.

Shelly Albrow's 15 minutes of fame: she saw a harmless spider. It was ON THE FLOOR.

Shelly Albrow’s 15 minutes of fame: she saw a harmless spider. It was ON THE FLOOR. #ohthehumanity

The British press rose to the occasion in gaudiest fashion by relaying her encounter with the Beast of Orpington (I made that up), “a deadly spider.” You know the drill. Somebody freaks out about Steatoda nobilis, an insignificant spider that’s somehow been dubbed Britain’s Most Venomous. But cor and blimey, just look at this photo and consult with Dr. Internet: if this is a Steatoda nobilis, I’m Tobey Maguire. And I’m not.

The Beast of Orpington.

The Beast of Orpington.

This (left) is a picture Ms. Albrow took of the monster, a harmless grass spider most likely, but let’s frighten a few more Brits and call it maybe a wolf spider! (owOOOoooooooo)

Anyway, Vetter found a number of entomologist colleagues who admit to fear and loathing of spiders. One hates spiders but works with maggots for a living and thinks they’re adorable:

This respondent is fully aware of the paradox of this spider-hating, maggot-friendly situation, but concluded an e-mail with “maggots don’t sneak up on you and jump in your hair.”

Often there was a Childhood Incident (tell me about having a family of brothers, I know). Vetter writes, “One entomologist mentioned that while her dislike of spiders is minor, her brother is highly arachnophobic, which ‘comes in handy sometimes.’ “ Several mentioned running into those big orb webs that go up overnight, in which the poor, hardworking arachnid has settled in with a few meager breakfast bugs and somebody face-blunders right into her work. One scientist had a bad dream about being snared by a human-sized spider.

One guy had a Cheiracanthium run all over his face and into his nostrils while he was driving. OK, he gets a pass.

Vetter admits the numbers aren’t representative. Nor is the Fear of Spiders Questionnaire (an actual psychological tool) well-tailored to his research:

When I (or other arachnologists with no spider fear) take the questionnaire, our score is 14 as opposed to the expected score of zero because we give the highest “totally agree” response to two statements (“Currently, I am sometimes on the lookout for spiders,” “I now think a lot about spiders”), but for completely opposite reasons than those of an arachnophobe. Personally, I probably think about spiders every waking hour of the day.

Me, too!

All academic articles should be written this way. First, a pretty chart showing just what the respondents have against spiders. Oingo Boingo (“Insects,” from “Nothing to Fear,” 1982) was right: it’s because they have too many legs! Also they scuttle. And surprise you.

Ugly, but not filthy. Silent, but not deadly. Feared most for "the way they move." I'm never going to dance again.

Ugly, but not filthy. Silent, but not deadly. Feared most for “the way they move.” I’m never going to dance again.

Then there’s an amazing chart showing how the respondents rank a whole zoo of animals on a like-dislike scale. Spiders and ticks bring up the rear:

No, I don't know what an earwing is either. Cuter than an eel, at any rate.

No, I don’t know what an earwing is either. Cuter than an eel, at any rate.

It’s a fun read. Bonus points for finding the words “jeebies” and “willies.”

I want to learn more about arachnophobia. There’s been a lot of research, but it’s still mysterious. Why are lots of people in certain countries afraid of spiders, but not as many in other places? Why would evolution select for arachnophobia, if it did, when spiders barely matter as threats to life and health? Why aren’t people terrified of mosquitoes and flies, which really are little mass-murdering bastids? And again—I think spiders are quite attractive, but even if you didn’t, why would you like maggots better?

 
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Posted by on September 17, 2013 in Cheiracanthium (sac spiders), Latrodectus (widows), Loxosceles (recluses), Myths and Calumnies, Netlore, Spider science, Steatoda (false widows)

 

Don’t Squish Me, Bro!

27 Aug

Wow. This really happens.

The news from Forest Grove, Oregon, a leafy burb just a stoner’s throw from Portland, is grim:

AUGUST 16 (as paraphrased in OregonLive.com): “A resident on Lavina Drive called police asking for assistance after finding a baseball-sized spider on her couch. An officer arrived at the home and after a brief and heated battle with the large spider, defeated it using an unconventional police weapon, a rolled up newspaper.”

Oregonian correspondent Kari Bray offers further details:

On Friday, Aug. 16, Forest Grove Police Officer Mike Smith responded to a call on Lavina Drive of a lurking couch spider the teenage caller said “looked like a tarantula,” according to Forest Grove police spokesman Capt. Mike Herb.

Smith estimated the spider was about 2 inches in diameter and couldn’t be certain what kind it was, Herb said. He defeated the arachnid with a rolled up newspaper.

The girl told police her mother had recently been bitten, so Smith scooped the dead spider into a container in case the family would like to have it looked at by an expert.

“Police would not normally respond to a call of a spider,” Herb said in an email. “But under the circumstances described we responded to help this girl who was extremely grateful.”

Honestly. Two inches in diameter, and it’s “baseball-sized”? Mom got nipped by an Invisible Spider (right: every mystery boil can be blamed on it) so this one has to die? And you already know the next part. There’s zero chance of the evil couch spider being harmful in any way. Oregon’s only medically significant spider is the black widow, and this wasn’t one.

Send some of those Forest Grove cops to San Jose, won’t you? They obviously have too many. We’ve got budget cuts that keep police from rolling to things like burglaries. We could put some of those newspaper-wielding heroes to work doing real cop stuff.

Allie is a wonderful cartoonist and writer (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com) but she's wrong, wrong, wrong about spiders.

Allie is a wonderful cartoonist and writer (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com) but she’s wrong to be scared about spiders. If squishing is so cathartic, why not try, I don’t know, termites? You can have mine.

 

 
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Posted by on August 27, 2013 in Myths and Calumnies

 

As Easy as Herding Tarantulas

20 Aug

Let’s go on a spider safari

This one goes out to all you screamers who won’t pick up a spider in a paper cup and put it outside. In case it, you know, leaps for your throat or lays eggs in your hairdo or something else that happens all the time.

In South Africa, a road-widening project ground to a halt last year when workers found a bunch of baboon spider burrows in the way. The two species encountered, Augacephalus junodi and Ceratogyrus darlingi, are protected, so the spiders had to be relocated.

Helloooo, Blondie. Augacephalus junodi, the golden baboon spider, had to pick up stakes when the road came through.

Helloooo, Blondie. Augacephalus junodi, the golden baboon spider, had to pick up stakes when the road came through.

Augacephalus is one of the most beautiful species names ever. Auga refers to the rays of the sun and cephalus means head; the pattern on this spider’s cephalothorax looks like a big, golden sunburst. Ceratogyrus has a little horn.

Baboon spiders are tarantulas. Hairy, hefty. They even sound big, though by tarantula standards they’re not especially. Tarantula hobbyists like to show them off, which means the populations are at risk from the illegal pet trade.

So did the road workers all faint in unison at the prospect of herding tarantulas?

Of course not: South Africans, folks! they’re tough. They wrestle lions before breakfast. Instead the workers, advised by a team of scientists, rounded up the big spiders by rooting them out of their burrows and collecting them by hand. Out of 400 spiders relocated (cue “Kingdom of the Spiders” footage, hello Bill Shatner), only two of them bit anybody, and the game-reserve adviser on the project shrugged it off with, “It is like a bee sting.”

A scientist (you can tell, only scientists wear wristwatches anymore) shows one of the relocated baboon spiders around her new digs. New burrow holes were dug with an auger, with grass and such added for curb appeal.

A scientist (you can tell, only scientists wear wristwatches anymore) shows one of the relocated baboon spiders around her new digs. New burrow holes were dug with an auger, with grass and such added for curb appeal.

I love this place! Then the team dug hundreds of artificial burrows for this shy, retiring animal, which lives most of its life in the same hole in the ground. The refugee spiders accepted the carefully located new burrows, which featured moistened soil and a scattering of plant material outside for shelter. The project turned out so well that other construction projects in South Africa started sending their spiders to the new habitat, too. Adjust your safari plans accordingly.

A side note: I’m sure you’ve noticed how eager energy companies are to trumpet their environmental credentials. These spider wranglers worked for a South African mining concern called Exxaro, which was widening a road to a power plant. I know nothing of their record and of course this story makes them look good—especially the part where some of the spiders set up housekeeping in a pile of ash next to another coal-fired power plant. Still, if oil companies can pass themselves off as cormorant-hugging do-gooders, I suppose this mining concern can use tarantulas as spokes-spiders for sustainability. After all, they coulda just squished them.

Ah, that new-home smell. Hope the neighbors are friendly.

Ah, that new-home smell. Hope the neighbors are friendly.

 
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Posted by on August 20, 2013 in Spider science, Tarantulas

 

More Spider Carnage: Film at 11

22 Jul

Sure … a spider did this

 

…. and then Jesus and his angels hoisted grateful Levi and his smashed Tacoma into their loving arms. The spider, unidentified and unquoted, apparently went back to Satan’s lair to plot anew.

 

Spider Causes Spokane Man To Crash Into Semi

KHQ-TV, July 20, 2013 

     SPOKANE, Wash. – Around 8:30 Saturday morning, Levi Van Dyke was driving and crashed his Toyota Tacoma truck into the back of a semi truck.
      “A spider was crawling up the back of my leg and when I actually saw it, I freaked out and started swatting at it … at just the wrong time,” Van Dyke said.
      Despite the severity of the crash as the pictures show, Van Dyke was somehow able to walk away with just a scratch on his head and shoulder. “I got some angels, Jesus loves me,” he said with a smile.
      The crash happened at 3rd and Lacey just off of I-90 right off the Altamont exit.
      The driver of the semi was fine.
 
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Posted by on July 22, 2013 in Myths and Calumnies, Netlore

 

Carjacked by a Spider

18 Jul

Arachnophobia Kills!

Oh, it’s not all Charlotte’s Web out there. I admit it: some spiders are bad to the bone(less), dangerous characters. Here’s where I atone for excess spider hugginess.

The real threat spiders pose to us, however, is not venomous bites. They do not devour hot-tubbing heavy metal guitarists. They do not munch prison inmates. They will not molest Mythbusters. The number one threat from spiders is . . .

They are terrible drivers!

 

Spider causes rollover accident in Ark City

 June 10, 2013, Newscow (“Your nose for news in Cowley County”)

(I am not making that up)

(Ark City is somehow a real place, too)

(No! I don’t know if Noah was involved)

 A local driver told authorities he was using a cup to kill a spider crawling in his vehicle when he lost control and rolled it Sunday morning.

Ark City police were called to the scene for a report of an injury accident. They arrived at the east Madison underpass to find a vehicle overturned with someone trapped inside it.

23-year-old Trevor Chaparro was freed from the vehicle and had blood on his head and face. He was treated for minor injuries and declined transport to the hospital.

Chaparro was cited for no proof of insurance, no valid license plate and inattentive driving.

He told officers he saw the spider crawling near the driver side door and attempted to kill it. Chaparro looked up to see he was driving toward the center columns of the bridge and maneuvered to avoid hitting them head on.

He struck the edge of the bridge and that caused the vehicle to overturn.

Hey lady, all we said was, "Clean your windshield?" Hey -- what's that switch for? Hey!

Hey lady, all we said was, “Clean your windshield?” Hey — what’s that switch for? Hey!

 

Then there are the Brits, who get all silly when it comes to spider scares but who never fail to write a good headline:

 

WOMAN CRASHES INTO POLICE CAR AFTER BEING SPOOKED BY SPIDER

“I’m a complete idiot”

 Daily Star, June 6, 2013

MOTORIST Mia Vamplew veered into the path of a police car after being spooked by a spider.

The police driver narrowly avoided a crash by braking hard before Vamplew, 28, swerved back on to her side of the road.

She told officers: “I’m a complete idiot. I freaked because a spider was above my head and I thought it may land on me.”

Vamplew, of Mullion, Cornwall, admitted careless driving and was fined £160 by Truro JPs.

 

This next spider caused the driver to veer “on to the wrong side of the road.” Well, of course. It’s England. She still gets “six penalty points on her licence” not for misspelling “license” but for mishandling her cricket bat in the first sentence, tut tut, bad show:

 

Arachnophobic driver caused car crash when spider dropped from sun visor

The Telegraph, April 4, 2012

Farmworker Lucille Ellis – who has a phobia of spiders – had been trying to bat away the arachnid when she drove her Nissan pick up on to the wrong side of the road and into the path of an oncoming car.

Ellis, 40, of North Petherwin, Cornwall, admitted careless driving last October on the A3072 road when she appeared at Bodmin magistrates court.

The other driver, Diane Martin, suffered back and leg wounds which needed skin grafts.

Ellis told police: “I was driving when a large spider dropped down in front of my face and I was just trying to bat it out of the way. I continued straight instead of taking the left hand bend and ended up on the other side of the road.”

She said she braked when she saw the oncoming car and swerved towards a verge to try and get out of the way.

She said: “I didn’t take my hands off the wheel or anything like that.”

Chris Andrews, defending, said she told police about her phobia of spiders and said it was not a “deliberate piece of bad driving”.

Magistrates fined her £325 with £100 costs and gave her six penalty points on her licence.

.

Note the use of the verb to show intention. The spider “made” poor Sara crash into a parked lorry, undoubtedly soiling her tea things and upsetting the Queen:

.

Woman causes £300 damage when she crashes car after spider lands on her lap

Daily Mirror, March 20, 2011

A TINY spider landing in her lap made driver Sara Mills, 22, crash into a parked lorry in Benfleet, Essex, ­causing £300 damage.

 

Now let’s go Dutch:

Woman crashes car while swatting at spider

UPI.com, Nov. 21, 2008

THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Nov. 21 (UPI) — Police in the Netherlands said a woman crashed her car near The Hague while she was attempting to kill a spider inside the vehicle.

Authorities said the woman lost control of her car while attempting to kill the spider and the vehicle flipped over on the A4 motorway, Radio Netherlands/Expatica reported Friday.

Traffic was backed up on the A4 as a result of the crash and two lanes of the road were closed. The woman was treated for injuries at a hospital.

 

Whitey Bulger, make room for a real crime spree on the mean streets of Boston:

 

Driver blames spider inside car for crash

WHDH (Boston), September 18, 2009

WEYMOUTH, Mass. — An “itsy bitsy spider” caused a big crash in Weymouth.

Amber Buckner, 26, was at the corner of Princeton and Bridge streets when she was distracted by a spider inside her car.

She rear-ended the car in front of her, which went straight up onto two wheels and collapsed on top of her car.

Buckner, her passenger and Danielle Evju, the driver of the car she struck, were all taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

“She’s like ‘Oh my God, is everybody all right? I was just paying attention to the spider, the spider that was on my windshield.’ And that’s all that she was paying attention to,” Evju said.

Buckner is being charged with following too closely and with driving an unregistered vehicle.

“I think that it’s absolutely ridiculous, that she should have pulled over, I think paying attention on the road, I mean these are people’s lives.”

Firefighters told Evju that the way her gas tank was hit, she could have been killed.

 

Look, twice it’s Weymouth! Do they breed the motorists especially jumpy there? Fun! I’m off to Boston with my satchel of rubber spiders!

 

Driver who caused Weymouth crash was startled by spider

The Patriot Ledger, September 19, 2012

WEYMOUTH: A woman who began a chain-reaction car crash on a busy street Tuesday morning was distracted by a spider, police said.

The 23-year-old Weymouth woman was heading north on Route 18 near Hunter Terrace when the spider crawled onto her at about 9:12 a.m., police Lt. Thomas Farrell said. The woman tried to swat the spider away and accidentally hit the gas pedal, causing her to strike the car in front of her and beginning a four-car crash.

No one was injured or charged following the crash. Three of the four vehicles were towed.

 

In California, a grizzly account from Officer Baer:

 

Wildomar woman crashes after spider drops down behind her

City News Service, August 23, 2011

A woman lost control of her vehicle, which crashed Tuesday on Interstate 15 in Wildomar, after a spider dropped down on the car seat.

The accident happened around 10 a.m. on southbound I-15, near Clinton Keith Road, according to the California Highway Patrol.

 Maria Perez of Fallbrook told CHP officers that she was traveling around 65 mph when she noticed the spider. Afraid the creepy crawler might touch her, Perez tried to get away, losing control of the box truck she was driving in the process.

“She swerved onto the west dirt shoulder,” said CHP Officer Nathan Baer, adding that the vehicle spun back onto the freeway, where it overturned on its left side.

Perez walked away from the crash, which completely smashed the truck’s front windshield. No other vehicles were involved.

Two of the freeway’s three lanes were blocked for more than an hour. Perez declined medical attention, Baer said.

 

Finally, no serious injuries you say? Yeah, air bags are just another roller-coaster ride when you’re a hitchhiking spider. Peel it off the headliner, it’ll be fine.

 

 Girl trying to shoo spider crashes car

Injuries do not appear serious

Associated Press, October 10, 2011

CONSTANTINE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Authorities say a 16-year-old girl was injured after losing control of the car she was driving in southwestern Michigan while trying to get a spider out of the vehicle.

The Kalamazoo Gazette reports the girl had minor injuries from Sunday night’s crash in St. Joseph County’s Constantine Township. She was taken to a hospital for treatment.

The sheriff’s department says the car ran off the road and its air bag deployed.

I told you I can't drive a stick!

I told you I can’t drive a stick! Just let me eat the damn spider!

 
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Posted by on July 18, 2013 in Myths and Calumnies

 
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