They are not like that at all
Myths about spiders, which are afraid of about 6 percent of the population of our planet, were debunked in a National Geographic publication. The icing on the cake among the horror stories about spiders was the claim that one popular body cream supposedly contains pheromones that attract wolf spiders.
Arachnids – intelligent and resourceful beings with many «character traits» to admire. However, none of these features suggest the ability of these representatives of the fauna to crawl into the mouth during sleep, lay eggs inside the body or food, much less enter the house through the sewer.
According to a spider expert and curator of arachnology at the Burke Rod Crawford Museum, much of what is commonly believed about eight-legged invertebrates is misleading.
“Everything you knew about spiders is wrong,— he claims — First of all, these are not insects. Spiders belong to a completely different class called arachnids. Spiders and insects are as different as birds and fish.»
Despite their bad reputation (mostly perpetuated by myth), spiders are phenomenal ecosystem engineers and are responsible for controlling hundreds of thousands of insects and agricultural pests.< /p>
Research has shown that in some ecosystems, more than 40 percent of all insect biomass passes through spiders, making them the primary regulators of insect populations. “Suppose some arachnophobic magician could wave his magic wand and make all spiders disappear. And it will be the greatest environmental disaster that has ever happened,” — Crawford stated.
However, most people have never been bitten by a spider in their lives. This is because spiders are not interested in interacting with people. Of the more than 50,000 species that roam the planet, very few have ever come into contact with humans. They are not bloodsuckers like mosquitoes, ticks or bedbugs, so they do not seek out people.
«When you wake up with small bumps and sores on your skin and blame it on a spider, there is almost always no reason to believe that the spider is responsible for the bite.” ;, — says Dimitar Stefanov Dimitrov, an expert on the evolution of spiders from the University Museum of Bergen in Norway.
Two small “fangs” Most spider bites are unlikely to leave a mark large enough to be noticed.
«Most bites that people think are spider bites probably aren't, — stated the scientists.
Over the years, online forums and a number of articles have claimed that we swallow up to eight spiders in our sleep every year. There are no verified studies, photographs, collected specimens, medical records or confirmed sightings of the spider crawling or attempting to enter a person's mouth, Crawford said. Spiders want nothing to do with our stinking, panting mouths, open from heavy breathing and snoring while we sleep.
«A spider cannot be attracted to this at all,— Crawford is sure. — The air flow will disturb the small sensitive hairs all over his body.
Spiders can sometimes be found in banana processing warehouses and banana shipments, crawling out of the crates in which the fruit was delivered. This is because bananas, grapes or other fruit clusters are good places to lay eggs. But the fact is that spiders leave their oviposition outside, and not inside the fruit. No spider makes a hole inside the fruit and lays eggs there, according to Dimitrov. Spiders are also unlikely to make a hole in a cactus and “shove” it into the cactus. into it a sac of eggs (as another myth suggests), not to mention causing it to swell, tremble, and then explode along with thousands of spiders as they begin to hatch from the eggs. Although there are burrowing spiders, which, for example, dig houses in the ground, they cannot pierce hard objects such as fruit or plants.
Upon returning from warm exotic countries, you may find, for example, a lump on your cheek that pulsates and grows. When the doctor opens the growth, hundreds of small spiders allegedly crawl out. This, according to scientists, can never happen. According to Crawford, this is one of the most common urban legends, and most likely originated from a German story from the 1840s in which a boil on a woman's cheek is opened by spiders… because she made a pact with the devil. Crawford argues that most spiders have neither the means nor the interest to burrow into thick human flesh and lay eggs there, and in the rare cases where a spider bites a person, it injects venom with its tiny fangs rather than laying eggs.
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Spiders live both outside and inside the house. In most cases, these different species will never meet. Although outdoor spiders already living in cold climates may wander in by chance, they have no interest in finding refuge in our cozy homes.
“About 95 percent of the spiders you see indoors have always been indoors, this is where they hatched and grew up— Crawford stated — They belong to a small number of species that have lived around man-made buildings for as long as they have existed.»
That's why finding a spider in your home and trying to release it into the wild — counterproductive. And that is why spiders do not crawl through pipes and sewers to move to us. If you find a spider in the bathroom or near the sink, it's likely a house spider trying to get a drink, according to Crawford, since water sources inside the home are few and far between. The spider was already living in your house and crawling towards the sewer. And then you discovered it. Additionally, most water pipes have a sediment trap section constantly filled with water, which most spiders will not be able to overcome. The next time you see a spider in your home, remember that it is more of a neighbor than an intruder. Moreover, they are likely to be a useful «element» of the project. in the ecosystem of your home.
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