You May Think You Know Spiders, But You Don’t Know Everything About Spiders

According to Michael Miller of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, spiders are all unique in their own ways, so it is not sensible to put all spiders into the “dangerous” category. Miller spends most of his time at the zoo caring for animals that you probably don’t want to cuddle with. For example, Miller has been acquainted with just about every eight-legged beast that you could list off, such as the black widow, huntsman, jumping spiders and false widows, just to name a few. And, as you can guess, Miller gets a lot of questions about spiders from zoo-goers. Many of these questions have to do with the black widow.

Miller admits that many female black widows cannibalize their mates, but not all of the time. In fact, the closely related red widow male will actually dive into the female’s mandibles. If the female does not feel like eating then she will spit him out. However, the male red widow will just keep diving into the female’s mandibles until she decides to devour him–talk about an undesirable way to die!

Also interesting are jumping spiders, or salticids. These spiders, unlike just about every other type of spider or arachnid, can see light spectrums that humans cannot, such as UVA and UVB light.

The majority of spider species are solitary, there are indeed a few species of spider that form large cooperative communities with their own kind. Spider colonies can become so large that even more than a thousand different spiders could be members of a colony. These spiders are also found working together in order to hunt and incapacitate prey, and they share their harvest together. It’s good to see such an ugly type of spider find happiness with its friends and family.

What do you know about spiders that you are not completely sure is true?