As the nights start drawing in and the seasons shift once
more, my house seems to become the local Air B&B for many uninvited but
(mostly) welcome guests.
Over the 17 years I’ve lived here, a whole menagerie of
creatures have chosen to call my house their home for the colder months. We
have had shrews in our shoes, a pheasant called Brian in the bathroom, endless
mice, a few rats in the roof and a partridge on the sofa…
But there is one creature that I have had to work very hard
to learn to live along side, and it’s probably one of the smallest of them all…
or sometimes not, in this 1700’s cottage!
They lurk in dark corners, I find them in the washing
basket, in the bathroom, on the blooming stairs in the middle of the night, and
once, I even found one in my bed… I am of course talking about our 8-legged
arachnid friends, spiders!
Now you might be wondering how on earth Dylan’s daughter is
scared of anything, let alone something so small as a spider. I grew up with
moths in the fridge (waiting for an ID), fish in a bath in the shed, pigeons in
my bedroom and even snakes in the caravan we went on holiday in, and to tell
you the truth, I don’t know why I am scared of spiders.
My dad would call me a “silly arse,” I’m sure, but I have
noted that he rarely interacted with these creatures either!
I know that I am not alone in my fear of spiders, it’s
estimated that around 6% of the population have severe arachnophobia, and there
is some argument for this irrational fear being an evolutionary phenomenon.
However, there is no proof that this is the case.
It’s obviously a question that has been puzzling other minds
as well because in November 2021 a team of zoology researchers, led by Daniel
Frynter at Charles University, Prague, carried out a study on why people seemed
to have such a strong fear of spiders.
Their hypothesis was that the fear was indeed evolutionary,
but what our brains were actually fearful of was a relative on the spider,
which had similar traits but was much more deadly to people - the scorpion. The researchers believed that our brains have learned to over
generalise the shape, and movement of spiders and scorpions and register them
both as the same “dangerous” animal.
That would make sense as scorpions are estimated to be responsible
for around 2,600 human deaths every year… a fact I never thought I would need to
know! Spiders on the other hand, rarely cause the death of people anywhere in
the world… although I still don’t fancy spending time with venomous spiders!
They studied the reaction and disgust levels of over 300
participants, towards 62 different types of arthropods, (including spiders,
scorpions, cockroaches and more) and they found that
“Spiders,
scorpions, and other arachnids scored the highest in fear and disgust, while
beetles and crabs scored the highest in beauty.”
You can read the research report here: Emotions
triggered by live arthropods shed light on spider phobia November 2021
They also found that the bigger the bug, the more fear it
seemed to elicit in people. I can verify that bigger spiders definitely cause
me more distress!
The conclusion of the study was this:
“Based on these
results, we hypothesize that the fear of spiders might be triggered by a
generalized fear of chelicerates, with scorpions being the original stimulus
that signals danger.”
I am aware that I have gone off at a tangent here… I do that
often!
Anyway, over the past couple of years I have been doing my
best to overcome my own fear of spiders, and I very bravely joined a Facebook
group called the British Spider Identification Group, which has changed the way
I look at spiders forever. Here are some photos of a few of these incredible creatures that I have taken during this time.
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| Flower Crab Spider in my garden |
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| Nursery Web Spider |
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| European Garden Spider |
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| Nuctena Umbratica (Walnut Orb- Weaver) The same as the first image in this post |
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| Tarantula at the zoo, not in my house! But I would not have been happy to take this photo before I started trying to overcome my fear. |
To start with the images of spiders would make me jump every
time they appeared on my screen, but over time I have developed an excitement
every time I see an image of a spider that I haven’t seen before. (Maybe its
middle age?!)
Thanks to the spider group I’ve learned so much and I am so
grateful for their knowledge and kindness and their sheer love of all thing’s
arachnid.
Here are some fascinating things I’ve learned about spiders
whilst trying to overcome my fear.
- The
position of the eyes on a spider’s face varies between families of spider
and can be used to identify the genus of spider. Not all spiders have 8
eyes, some have 6, 4 or 2 eyes.
- Despite
having all those eyes, many web dwelling spiders can’t see very well but
can see light and dark. They like to be in the dark and that’s why they
sometimes run towards us instead of away, because they think we are a big
shadow! Hunting spiders, like jumping spiders and wolf spiders have much
sharper vision.
- Male
spiders have their reproductive organs (pedipalps) on their face!! A fact
I find absolutely fascinating.
- We
have over 650 species of spider in the UK.
- If a
spider is dehydrated you can see it in their abdomen, it becomes smaller,
wrinkled or deflated. A cotton bud soaked in water and taped to the wall
near the spider often encourages them to drink.
- Because spiders molt their exoskeleton so that
they can grow, they can also grow back missing legs!
I hope that this blog post has piqued your interest in these
8-legged fascinating animals and not traumatised too many of you!
I am still not 100% cured of my fear and I still couldn’t
have a spider on me and remain calm but am I now able to see a beauty and
fascinating in these tiny creatures. I can now pick them up in a glass and look
closely at them before releasing them in the garden shed and I am quite proud
of that.
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| Giant House Spider - My latest catch in my house! |
PS: I’ve just realised that whilst I have been typing this
post a spider has been on the ceiling right above my head, probably making sure
that I don’t spread any more untruths about spiders!
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| Long-Bodied Cellar Spider keeping and eye on me! |
