While not usually considered paragons of tender, familial love, some spiders do have a touchy-feely side. Scientists have discovered two arachnids that caress their young and snuggle together. While not usually considered paragons of tender, familial love, some spiders do have a touchy-feely side.
Spiders do have feelings, but unlike a dog or a cat, they won't bond with you. In fact, they likely won't even recognize you. They simply aren't hardwired to be companions to humans and should never be bought at pet stores, online, or anywhere else.
A tarantula will never become attached to you or other humans, but their behavior might sometimes suggest they like you. In reality, they like something you can do for them, typically providing food. There is no evidence to suggest a tarantula can become attached to a human or even enjoys being around humans.
“It's unlikely that spiders, with their tiny brains, would have an emotional response analogous to the sadness that we'd feel when something we've built has been destroyed,” says Jerome S. Rovner, arachnid expert and co-author of Spider Communication: Mechanisms and Ecological Significance.
Sometimes when we get too close or disturb them, they treat us like they would treat any predator. Many spiders have threat displays intended to scare off predators, such as rearing up or lunging. Biting in self-defence is another strategy that spiders can use when they are afraid for their lives.
Killing spiders will only attract other spiders; often, this makes way for nastier spiders. Some spiders are doing you a favor and are good to have in your home.
While the theory is unproven, it is likely that spiders can detect human fear. However, there are only few studies about this topic and it is not yet known for certain. Different animals have sensory organs that are able to identify different stimuli.
Spiders see us as furniture that moves. They have no interest in us. They are not curious about us. They are in your room because they are looking for bugs to eat.
When tested with larger quantities, the spiders didn't distinguish between three or higher, lumping them all into one category of “many.” Although spiders can't literally count one-two-three, the research suggests some jumping spiders have a sense of numbers roughly equivalent to that of 1-year-old humans.
Using a specialized treadmill system and point-light display animation, the scientists found that the spiders can recognize the visual movements of living organisms, or biological motion. The ability to read these visual cues allows people, even babies, to spot another creature just by the way its body moves.
Because of where they're located, they're “likely to able to directly perceive sensory input during sperm transfer,” the scientists write. That doesn't necessarily mean that the spiders are having sex for fun. Actually, if they feel anything at all, it could be as a way to up their game.
They're not like dogs or cats - they don't need affectionate touch from humans. They're wild animals that, if they are aware of us at all, are generally afraid of us. Touching or holding them is likely to scare them and you risk hurting them by accident.
Now scientists have found that spiders can hear you from across a room. The discovery came as a surprise because, technically, spiders do not have ears. However, the latest research shows that the hairs on spiders' legs are so sensitive that they can detect human speech from several metres away.
Male spiders can “hypnotize” female spiders
“It causes the female to enter a passive trance-like state. So to us it looks almost as if she's been knocked out. It's not clear whether it's her decision to become passive, or whether this male pheromone is causing her to to enter that trance.
They found that not only did the spiders remember they caught something, but they also remembered features of the prey and the quantity of it. Memory in tiny creatures was long thought to be a hardwired behavior that didn't require much mental capacity.
The color that spiders tend to hate is light blue. People don't just paint their porches light blue for the aesthetic. Painting your porch ceiling in this shade is a pretty effective way of keeping spiders away. The color is also known to repel wasps.
It's defensive behavior, usually called “defensive immobility” or simply “immobility.” They freeze to avoid getting noticed. They draw in all their vulnerable parts (their legs) to avoid injuring them as well as camouflaging their silhouette.
So, if you sing loudly to a spider, play the mandolin for it, or take it to a rock concert, the sound waves produced can elicit responses in spiders.
Over 21 days, the itty bitty spiders that were constantly exposed to hints of a predator stopped eating, lost weight and, finally, gave up the ghost. Persons was surprised to find that spiders can be scared to death "even when the predator isn't present!"
Before entering your shed or basement, make a little noise to scare spiders off. Remember, they are truly more afraid of us than we are of them!
Spiders View Humans As Predators
But what about getting revenge? Spiders will not try to get revenge on you for one simple reason: you are a predator to them! Even the biggest spider in the world, the Goliath Bird-Eating Tarantula, is no match for a human.
When spiders die, their tiny legs curl up tight against their body, because spiders don't use muscles to extend their legs. Instead, they have hydraulic legs!
MALES will go to extreme lengths to get females, but playing dead might not seem like an obvious strategy. Some male nursery web spiders, however, regularly feign death, and those that do are more likely to mate.
“Our studies extended the range of auditory sensitivity to more than 3 metres – over 350 body lengths – for our spiders.” The team established that the spiders freeze when exposed to low-frequency sounds of about 80 to 400 hertz that resemble a low hum, or buzz.
Spiders aren't social, so they don't need the range of emotions that, for example, humans and dogs do. We can't ask spiders how they feel, but I'm sure that they have simple and basic emotions. They can certainly get scared and stressed, and possibly feel happy and satisfied when they have caught food.