How Spiders Work

Spiders are second only to snakes in the dread departemnt, but they're actually very helpful arachnids who are only deadly to humans under the worst case scenario. Of the more than 40,000 species, very few spiders are even venomous to humans. Learn everything you ever needed to know about these 8-legged wonders in today's episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is brought to Welcome to Stuff You Should
Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Yeah, there's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. Uh and this is Stuff
you Should Know the podcast. That's right. How are you doing?

(00:23):
I'm doing great? Man? Good? How are you doing? Jerry? Jerry?
Oh goodness me. Good to be back in one A. Yeah,
it's been fighters and stuff twenty four hours. Yes, last
I saw one thing, um when I was watching a
documentary on spiders that they said, there's never You're never

(00:44):
more than an arm linked away from lots of spiders.
And I wondered, because I've done you. I finally did
your little trick with the flashlight. Did it work? Oh yeah, dude,
it's horrifying. They are everywhere. But I wonder about like
in this room and this it feels like hermetically sealed
concrete vault. Are there spiders in here? There's one dangling
above your head right now? I see No, they are pretty,

(01:07):
they're good at hiding, they're small. So you're saying they're
in here, I would guess, So, I mean, like, why
why would they not be in here, like the one
place in the world and they've been around for what
four million years? Yeah, they're pretty durable. They've spread everywhere everywhere,
and um, one of the ways that they have adapted
is by generating new species. Yeah, like to the tune

(01:31):
of forty thousand that we know about, and they're like,
there may be thousands of more species, not just spiders
species exactly. Um. They have a tendency to kind of
take over an area because they're actually in their realm
of existence, they're frequently apex predators. Yeah, I mean they're

(01:52):
they're the uh, they're they've been lined the sharks and
that they are robots that kill and eat and make
baby spiders and sort of what they do in life. Yes,
but they also do some pretty neat geometric designs. Their
spiders are pretty fascinating, super creepy things. Yeah. That thing

(02:12):
you sent the how they take over that? Um like
that building? Yeah, the it was Baltimore's wastewater treatment plant.
They took over four acres of it. It was abandoned, right,
No oh really, Yeah, they just got a foothold in there.
That happened while dudes were working in the building. Yeah,
they said no, they noticed, but like they what are

(02:32):
these guys gonna do? They're like wastewater treatment guys, not exterminators,
So they didn't know what to doator, but they well
they did. The Baltimore UM City was like, can anybody
help with this week have something of a spider problem,
and actually brought in some academics who determined that something
like there were thirty five thousand spiders per cubic meter

(02:54):
in that building. That is a ton of spiders, they
were saying, and in this article, I think it was
on why points out that these are mid career entomologists
who um like have seen stuff before? Did they say? Etomologists? Entomologists? Right, yeah,
yeah yeah, um. And they were like, I've never seen

(03:15):
anything like this before my life. So they brought in
the spider version of Quint from Jaws. Probably seems like
you're gonna have to move, you have to kill the queen. Yeah,
now I speak even he was like, where you guys
gotta go? No, there's not a queen. Because I didn't
realize this, but it makes sense when I hear it.
Spiders lead solitary lives. They bow down to no one.

(03:35):
They just do what they want to do yes, and
spiders are not insects. They are arachnids in the class Arachneita,
the order um arena. Even got told how to pronounce those.
I think I think it's just a didn't that what
the lady said. I think she said, like it it's

(03:58):
pronounced like it looks okay, so it would be aaron a. Well,
it's the same order as ticks that we've talked about
in scorpions, which I would like to cover at some point.
Scorpions and my what was that my scorpion? I thought
you were gonna sing rocky like a hurricane. I've probably

(04:18):
seen winds of change instead. Really, yeah, it's a good
song man. I like a little harder. I like it
all all scorpions, all the time. Alright. So spiders, because
there are forty thousand species um, they obviously differ from

(04:41):
the tiniest little thing to the the goliath bird eater
of Australia, which is can be as big as a
dinner plate. I think that's actually from South America. Oh
is it? Uh huh? I thought those were Australian. Australia
has plenty of spiders scary ones too, but the goliath
bird eaters. Yeah, and it's called a bird eater because
it can actually eat small birds. It does. It frequently

(05:05):
eats some little baby birds, but those are still birds.
And it's a spider eating a bird. There's a there's
a video that we have on the podcast page um
for this episode of a goliath spider eating a mouse
and it it's it's remarkable. Yeah, dude, I saw one
of a spider eating a viper snake what like the

(05:28):
snake went into the hole and the tarantula one what
And I mean they'll eat fish, they eat frogs and lizards.
Insects obviously, Yeah, but they'll eat whatever. Yeah. Yeah, they
do make it into a soup down it goes. Okay,
So I think we've kind of laid the ground where
care spiders are extraordinarily fascinating. You said they are arachnids um,

(05:53):
which means that they're not actually insects. And the thing
that differentiates them from insects is pretty simple. They don't
have and a true thorax. They have a cephalothorax, right,
which is the head and the thorax fused together, and
then they have the abdomen. So spiders have two segments. Yeah,
that's that's what makes them different. Yeah. And the the

(06:14):
segments to me seemed what they housed seemed a little backward,
like that rear segment the abdomen. I would have thought like, oh,
that's where the stomach is and all that stuff. The stomach,
the brain, the eyes, and the mouth are actually in
the front cephalothorax, and the abdomen is where the heart
and lungs, reproductive organs and digestive tract are. It seems

(06:36):
so a little flip floppy to me. It's like a
Ferrari where like the trunk is in the front and
the engines in the back. Yeah, or a Volkswagen the
same thing. Yeah. Yeah, well not all Volkswagons, but my
old Beadle had the rear engine. It makes them go
go go, yeah. Or it's air cold, so if it's
super hot, it makes it stop stop stop. Yeah. Another

(06:57):
thing that spiders have in common is they all have
eight legs, although some of them it looks like they
have ten pairs of legs. Oh no, I'm sorry, ten legs,
five pair of legs, And what that is is actually
they have something called petty palps. Oh yeah. Some of
them are longer and look leggy. Right, So it looks
like they have five pair of legs, but really it's

(07:19):
four pair of legs and a pair of petty palps.
And these things are basically it's like um, their four arms,
their arms, it's like a squirrel. Imagine a squirrel, spidery
little tiny little front arms. Yeah, eating a nut or
a mouse or a viper um what else? All spiders
spin silk, right yeah, but not all of them spin webs,

(07:40):
right yeah, but they all of them are capable of
creating silk, which we'll talk about. To me, that's the
gold that's just amazing, and other there are other insects
that can spin silk like silkworms. Nothing in nature is
like spider silk, though it's strong, it's elastic. Um. For example, well,

(08:00):
if you are a spider and you build a web,
you can trap a bumblebee, a big old bumblebee at
full speed, and your your um web will be able
to withstand the impact. It's it's a huge, huge, massive
impact and you're the tensile strength of your web is
going to take it like nothing. Yeah. I think I

(08:20):
saw one thing that said it was a hundred times
stronger than a human ligament. That's strong. Yeah, stronger than
steel even that's strong. But again that's a tease. We're
gonna cover silk here in full. Um. But back to
the body, my friend. Uh, Spiders breathe in a very
basic way but fascinating. They have a trachea and what

(08:42):
are called booklongs. Uh. Most of the species have both,
some just have one. Um, but it's really a different thing.
What what they do is air flows in uh through
these basically slits and the exoskeleton, which is the trachea,
and then there's just a lot of osmosis but diffusion
bass exchange. Yeah, but it's not like I'm breathing in air.

(09:04):
It's just air is being diffused in and CEO two
is diffused out right, and the movement of the spider
actually pushes air through these trichia. Yeah, it's not like
a lung that breathes quote unquote. And then they do
have most species have both trichia and booklongs. Um. But
the booklung kind of is like an extra well, it's
an extra lung. It's an extra place where gas exchange

(09:27):
takes place. And um, they're called book lungs because it
looks like an open book that's being flopped open, So
there's different leads and um. Those leaves are filled with blood,
but the exterior of them become in contact with air,
so that's where the gas exchange takes place. Yeah. And
speaking of the blood, it's called hemo lymph and it

(09:50):
circulates O two and nutrients and hormones at all. But
um again and sort of a fascinating way. It has
a simple heart that's just like uh, pump in, pump out,
and it basically just saturates all the organs and blood
and that's where they get their oxygen. Yeah. It's not
a closed system where like your your your arm is

(10:13):
getting blood because blood vessels are are carrying or carrying
blood to it. It's like your entire arm, everything beneath
your skin would be full of blood. Yeah, and so
everything in there that needs oxygen or hormones or whatever
it is getting them just from being bathed in this stuff. Yeah,
it's pretty remarkable. It is brains, they've got them. Yeah,

(10:34):
they are tiny little brains, and some spiders are smarter
than others, but in general, spiders, the way I read
it was, are sort of like little chemically signaled robots
it's just chemical signals flying all over the place that
operate everything. I think the jumping spiders are the smartest one.

(10:54):
Well yeah, and it's kind of making it's puzzling science.
So there's they have ganglia. They don't even have true
brains spiders exactly, and they're like little nerve bundles and
that's where all their impulses are originate, and that transfers
the signals to the rest of their body. Um. And

(11:15):
in a jumping spider, the ganglia amounts to about a
hundred thousand neurons, just tiny, tiny, tiny amount of brain power,
and yet their vision is about on par with human vision.
The jumping spider jumper, yes, the great They have eight

(11:35):
eyes with almost three hundred and sixty degree vision um
and they can see very clearly their surroundings. But again
they're doing this with a hundred thousand neurons. So roboticists
and a lot of other smart people are looking into
this to see like where this sufficiency is taking place,
Like how you can generate that level of clarity and

(11:56):
information from just a hundred thousand neurons. Yeah, they think, um,
they don't think. They know that. They like to drink
human blood jumping spiders, but from mosquitoes, and supposedly by
looking at a mosquito they can tell if it has
blood in it or not, just from vision. Um and

(12:16):
I don't think they figured that out either, but they've
seen clearly that every experiment they go to the mosquito
with the blood, which is remarkable, jumping like fifty times
their body length to to pounce on whatever it is. Yeah,
So imagine being a human and jumping even one time
your own body length, your height, you know, like a
standing broad jump. Yeah, but right, that's not gonna happen.

(12:41):
These guys can do fifty times, and they do it
quick to super fast. Spiders are amazing. Hey, maybe that's
why they called the comic the Amazing Spider Man. Oh maybe.
And it's funny. When I was reading all this stuff,
every like ten seconds, I was like, oh, just like
Spider Man, so clearly stand like to this research. Well,
what's funny is like this this article by old Tom Harris.

(13:06):
Um old Man Harris tries to like it compares like
spiders to humans throughout the whole thing. Yeah, just like
human spiders have a brain, but not really Yeah. Um And,
speaking of Spider Man, I guess spidy sense is sort
of what's uh really going on. They do have those
eyes and while this jumping spider can see really well,

(13:27):
most spiders it's a secondary sense and they use that
spidy sense that can feel vibrations like remarkably well feel it,
feel it is that good vibrations. Um. So they can
sense anything from like a long way away and sort
of know what it is, even especially if something's in

(13:47):
the web. So they've got hairs all over their body right, Um.
They also have additional hairs called trick of both for you. Yeah,
and those the the hairs um the rest of their
body or basically like, um, it's touching the ground, so
we can sense like movement on the ground or vibration
of the ground or in their web or something like that.

(14:08):
But the trick of both the hair can sense movement
in the air. Like. That's how sensitive this is. And
this is how spiders really sense their environment. Yeah. And
they can also taste, unlike snakes um the one that
we just released, um and smell. Yeah, so they pretty
well defined senses and they they really enjoy the taste

(14:31):
of mouse brains, like they really save for it mouse
brain soup. Uh, speaking of feet and legs, I had
no idea this was the case. Um, they have this adaptation.
Like we said, there are lots of thick hairs on
the legs and um, at the bottom of each hair
on the feet, well our feet. Yeah, so at the

(14:54):
end of tons of hair at the end of each
leg and they have eight legs, but on the end
of each hair or a bunch of feet like you say, yeah,
a little feet and then they can drip onto like anything, Yeah,
except the bathtub. Was that a joke or something? Or
is that like a well known thing about spiders that
they can't walk on bathtubs, because I don't know what
that means. I think bathtubs are a place where you

(15:16):
find spiders a lot of times because they can't get out.
So you'll be like, oh, there's a spider in the bathtub,
and you see it just going near and sliding back down.
So I think that was a bit of a joke,
and that's my guess. Have you ever had one come
out of the faucet the bathtub faucet? No, huh, that's
always fun. I was terrified for a brief time as

(15:37):
a kid because I went to turn on my bath
water and like put my hand down and like a
spider came out. And so for several years afterward, I
was petrified. Yeah, I was just a stinky little boy.
And that was last year. All right, So let's take
a break and then after that we will talk about

(15:58):
the malting process and a little it about spider silk.
All right, are we at the skeleton? I think we

(16:19):
are man exoskeleton. Yes, spiders have skeleton just like humans,
except it's on the outside exactly. Um, and they move
using muscles, right, but strangely they only half moved using muscles. Yeah,
this was just so interesting to me. It seems like
a mal adaptation. Oh yeah, yeah, like something they should

(16:39):
be able to do. Yeah. Um, spiders are able to
contract their muscles right, so they can move their legs inward,
and that's how they take a step and then to
complete the step. Rather than having muscles expand to move
the legs outward, again, they don't. They all have those

(17:01):
muscles for some reason. Instead, they pump hemo lymph into
their legs using hydraulic pressure to force them back out.
So muscles hydraulic pressure, muscles hydraulic pressure. It's so strange
it is really strange, but it clearly works well. It works.
Sometimes there's a spider can suffer from dehydration basically to

(17:24):
where it doesn't have enough hemo lymph to um which
is blood again to pump in to create the hydraulic
pressure necessary to make its legs move out. So if
you ever see a spider on its back with its
legs all curved inward, that's a dehydrated spider right there,
may handsome caterade. It may not be dead yet, basically

(17:45):
right right, and he'll tell you too, not dead yet,
Just poke it and then give him a drink and
send him along his way. The exoskeleton itself is um
made of cuticle, and it's basically proteins like kitan and
sugars like polysaccharides, and they're just stretched out and layered

(18:07):
upon each other to make it super strong. It's like
a really strong shell. It is for protection, obviously, but
the problem is that shell, once it's hardened, it doesn't
keep growing, although the spider does so. Much like snakes
and lots of other animals, spiders have adapted revolved to

(18:28):
mold to get rid of their old exoskeleton and um
a bunch of hormones trigger this. When it's time to
start growing. Uh, the spider will, I think, just like
a snake, start to absorb some of the inner layer
of the exoskeleton, right, and it becomes a little liquefied,
and they create this um, this fluid barrier between the

(18:53):
old exoskeleton and the new exo skeleton that they're growing. Yeah,
just like a little gap, basically a liquid gap, right exactly.
And the as the new exoskeleton starts to get grow
a little more and a little more, eventually absorbs that
fluid and then now there's like a a gap, a

(19:14):
real gap in between the all exo skeleton and the
new one. Yeah, and then it's um it's basically trapped
inside this old skeleton and does a little incredible hulk
move where it pumps that the blood again the hemo
lymph and expands the cephalothorax and it just like bust
out of it and then just keeps wriggling around until

(19:35):
it's completely out of it. But it's pants never fully
rip off. That always bugged me. It's just so unlikely
that a guy in like a thirty two ways can
become this like tin foot giant, right, it just is
like the lower calves and ankles were big enough to
rip his pants into tatters down there? What about the

(19:57):
waist and the thighs. No pulks would be naked, you know, technically, yes,
And again Stanley really studied spiders, so you'd think he
would know that about the hulks pants. But all right,
so after they have molted um, this is when they
do most of their growing because their new exoskeleton is um.
It's not quite fully hard yet. It can expand a

(20:19):
little bit at this point, but they're super vulnerable because
it's not as hard at that point as well. Right,
so they'll just kind of go off and be like,
let me alone, let me alone, let me alone. I
know him, the apex predator, but I've made a lot
of enemies along the way. They are looking for me
right now. So Chuck, we can't really put it off
any longer. And I don't know why we would. Time
to get silky. Yeah, we're gonna talk about spider silk. Uh.

(20:43):
It's amazing. We talked already a little bit about its
tensil strength, stronger than steel or kevlar um. And here's
the neat thing is that it's actually a liquid when
it comes out until you start stretching it and then
it becomes a solid. Right, it's extruded from spiggott and
the spiders um spinnerets. Right, So the spinnerets are um

(21:05):
these little pairs of almost like arms or whatever that
the spiders like this kind of yeah, As the silk
is the silk which is made up of amino acids
in like a water solution, like you said, when it's extruded,
the spider can do all sorts of different things with this.
And depending on how much um like pressure it applies

(21:30):
that the spigot or whatever, it could be a really
thin strand, it can be a thicker strand, it can
be short long, it could be a thin strand encased
in the thicker strand. They can do all sorts of
really neat stuff with their um their silk, so much
so that that researchers still aren't a hundred percent sure
what the heck is going on here, but they just
know that the spiders can do tons of different stuff

(21:52):
with just the silk proteins alone and the extrusion. Once
they come out, the spider can weed these things together
to create even stronger thread and again, this is stuff
that apparently it's uh several times stronger wait for weight
than steel. Yeah, and kevlar. So it's five times as

(22:13):
strong as an equal massive steel and twice as strong
as an equal massive kevlar. And remember with them the
bulletproof vest episode, we talked about using goat's milk to
produce spider silk. Yeah, they're doing it. Yeah, they definitely are.
They're not using it for uh, they haven't applied it yet,
but they do have um goat farms. They basically found, uh,

(22:37):
the genetic code specifically that creates the drag line. And
the drag line is the um that's sort of the
most common silk that it will spin. It's like a line.
It's like a mountain climber's rope they'll leave behind them
and in case it needs to like retreat quickly, it'll
have a little rope to pull itself along. So that's
the drag line. So they isolated the genetic code for

(22:59):
this drag line, put that in the goat embryo implanet
and a mama goat and the goat came out like
why they don't even know? That's the beauty of it.
They milk the goat and then from that point it's
a little bit like making cheese um from what I saw,
like they separate the they skim the fat off, and
it's like separating curds from way and then potentially we

(23:21):
could have like ligament replacement with spider or heart. Yeah,
they're looking to regrow human hearts with this stuff. Can
you imagine having a new heart grown from spider silk
made from goat's milk pumping in your chest. It's pretty neat. Yeah,
I think i'd tell people about that, be like, let

(23:42):
me tell you about my new heart exactly. That's ado
with spiders, goats and my poor diet a lot of
steak um, which is not true. What do you mean
misteak is not bad for you? Oh right right? Too
much medic myth? Is that the deal? Yeah, fats and
stuff like that. Uh. They think that the silk glands

(24:04):
originally started out as just ways to mark territory, like
a scent gland, and then they realize, I'm actually can
leave a substance behind that's super strong. As it turns
out super strong, and again also pound for pound, it's
as flexible as um rubber, natural rubber. Yeah. So it's
pretty amazing stuff. And again, the spider can do all

(24:26):
sorts of different things with it. And one of the
things you said is create the drag line, which is
like a trail of bread crumbs for an emergency. Yeah,
most spiders, that's the most common use of spider silk,
I believe, across species. Right, just like I'm gonna go
fifteen feet that way, and I'm gonna leave my little
drag line behind in case I need to hide. Tell
it out of there. Yep. They also have other glands
that can produce substances to put onto the spider silk,

(24:51):
like sticky stuff, which is very useful in creating webs
or water resistant materials. Yep. Um, basically like spray net
with what's this stuff? Just blank? When like for gortex
he spray uh Scotch card, Scotch card. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um.

(25:12):
Female spiders will use uh, they'll make protective cocoons. Sometimes.
If you're in your basement and you see a big
looks like a cotton ball full of eggs, that's a
spider's sack. Yeah, it's a cocoon they've they've woven to
help out their little little guys and gals survive. And
then did you see the net cast? No, I'm I
ran across in this article, but I haven't seen one. Yeah,

(25:33):
you can just google on YouTube or whatever net casting
spider And it's basically like a little uh fishing net
that they'll weave between and hold it between their legs
like a sheet, and then something walks by and they
just throw it over their head real quick and like
wrap them up in it. You can throw it in
the van and drive off. Basically, So the probably the

(25:55):
most famous and I can't believe I even just said probably,
but the most famous you of spider silk in nature
is to spider webs. Yeah, the most amazing thing you
will see is an orb weaved web. And there's a
lot of the orb weaved. Is the good one that's
the geometric looking. They clearly care about it. There are

(26:16):
plenty of other spiders that really don't care what their
webs look like the right. Yeah, they drink out of
mugs that they're like, I hate mondays and stuff. They
just don't care about their web. Like black widows actually
make terrible stupid webs. Yeah, and you would think like
they're sleek, they're they're vicious symbol. Yeah, but they don't

(26:37):
care what their web looks like. And what are you
gonna do. I'll bite you, yeah that's what they say.
Or I'll mate with you and kill you. Right. Either way,
you're getting bit. Have you ever seen you see a
lot of them in your apartment or a house or
what do you implying? No? Well, I mean well you
don't have a basement. No, see, I go on my basement, dude.
They're everywhere. Man, it's creepy. It is creepy because you know,

(27:01):
they am brown reclusives, which we'll talk about too. They're
very reclusive, hence the name for the brown recluse. But
black waidows are the same. They don't want to have
anything to do with you, and when you come near them,
they want to get away from you. So having them
in your house is not really much of an issue
for you. It is for the insects in your house,

(27:22):
but for you it doesn't really matter. But just seeing
them and just knowing that it just makes you kind
of shudder, right. Well, that that shiny red hourglass is
just like creepy. Look they look really deadly. Yeah, and
I have an unfinished basement, so there are spiders everywhere
in my basement, dude, everywhere? Is it like the Baltimore
Wastewater treatment plant down there? It almost is like I won't, um,

(27:44):
I won't reach into any uh darkened area of my
basement to get a tool or something. That's probably smart
because they would want to get away from your arm.
But if you really scare them or something that they
feel threatened, they'll come at you. Like It's not like
they won't bite you, So I think that's that's very
a good chuck. I'm going to get you shoulder length
um leather gloves for Christmas. I've got some, do you yet?

(28:08):
Not for that, but sure you should wear them when
you go to reach of the well. I worry about
my animals sometimes, but I read that um spider venom
and we're jumping ahead a little bit, but it's not
harmful to animals. Like the most deadly spider in the
world is the funnel uh Sydney funnel weaver fun funnel

(28:28):
web in Australia, of course Sydney and um they I
saw a video of a cat like playing with one
and it said for some reason, it like doesn't affect
any animal, any mammal but humans. That's really weird, and
they have no idea why because humans came along way
after spiders did so then no one can figure that

(28:48):
part out. It's really odd. Yeah, I don't think you
have to worry about your pets with spider bites. That's
a good ps right thing. All right, So we're back
at the web. I would advise everyone at some point,
I'd like you to follow along if you're at home,
but go to the House Supports article on spiders. That
little graphic. It's so helpful. The flash animation. Yeah, yeah,

(29:10):
and it works not on Android devices, but it just
you just go to your desktop. Desktop version of the
site has this the little flash where you just click
next and it shows you exactly what it takes to
build a spider web. Yeah, but we'll we'll talk you
through it here. Um. The first thing that happens is
the spider gets up on someplace high up, like a

(29:32):
tree branch, and fires that one it's called a bridge,
that one starting point down and just hope the wind
attaches it to something else below it, and if it attaches,
then it cinches it up really tight. And he's like,
I've got this sort of like the foundation that's the baseline.
The baseline, Yeah, very nice. And uh, the spider crawls

(29:52):
across that baseline, which I think it's a bridge is
what it's called. Like baseline, all right. It crawls across
the base and as it does, it releases another line
of silk that's um much looser, sort of dangles below it,
and it attaches it at each end where the baseline
is attached to those two branches to right, and like
you said, it dangles below it, forming is kind of

(30:14):
a lazy V. And the spider crawls down to the
lowest point of that V and then drops another line
from that point down to say another anchor point, so
that forms like a tighter y. Yeah, it sort of
looks like an upside down coat hanger. If the if
the if the hook was straightened out exactly or why
you know, a why with a line crossing the two

(30:35):
points at top exactly. So now it's got this and again, um,
it tightens everything up along the way if everything is
going as planned, and then you have it has to
lay out frame threads and this is when it starts
going in Uh not I guess a circle, but a

(30:56):
circle made up of straight lines. Uh, yeah, that kind
of Yeah. I want to say octagon. But it's more
than eight sides. It's a polygon, is it. Yeah, there's
more more than one gone, so it's a polygon. I
thought poly meant five. No, No, I think that's a
I don't think so hectagon pentagon? I think so, man, no, man,

(31:20):
we get killed. But it's it's a it's several rhombus
is put together, all right? With that? So there's a structure.
Now there's like the outer structure, there's an inner structure.
And the thing is getting stronger and stronger, and the
spider will create um. It will start at the middle
and basically create like a circular like a Nautilus motion,

(31:40):
laying silk all around. Most people think of spiderwebs is
fairly sticky. It is not sticky at this point, and
for one very good reason. The spider has to move
along it, so it hasn't laid down any sticky silk yet.
But once it creates this um, this circular pattern, and
knows where it's gonna go, it goes back around it

(32:02):
and eats the old stuff while it lays down a silky,
sticky silk in its place. Yeah, it's it's a spiral.
We keep saying circle. I think spiral makes a little
more sense. It's the word. So yeah, like you said,
it'll it'll eat the previous one, laid down the sticky one,
but it also still has an auxiliary spiral to get
around on. It just knows where to walk basically, Yeah,

(32:25):
like I'm not gonna walk on the sticky one. I'm
gonna walk on the other one. Right. It was pretty
amazing in itself. Yeah, and then it's web is is
created and that's again it's called an orb web. A
lot of spiders and it's mostly from garden spiders that
create orb webs in an elevated area. Beautiful. Um, Charlotte
must have been a garden spider and it's clearly an

(32:46):
orb web. The thing definitely have more than a hundred
thousand neurons because it could spell Yeah. We had a
big garden spider um we've won last year on our
side deck attaching to our house and was in a
great place that the dogs wouldn't hit it and we
wouldn't hit it, and we would just go out every
day and be like, you know, check it out and
see how it was doing. How was it doing. It

(33:07):
was doing great lots of lots of flies and stuff,
and it was fattening up while they're not there for long. Yeah. Um,
So generally they'll hang out in the middle of that
web wait for the vibrations. And like we said, they
can even tell the difference between like a wasp getting caught,
which is not so great sometimes, or uh, butterfly, let's say,

(33:29):
and which they want to eat. So they love butterfly
delicious flight tastes like frog legs to them. Uh. Some
other spiders will be like, I'm not waiting in the
middle of this web. It's raining out. I'm gonna go
hang out in my nest. And they'll they'll leave like
a drag line that in this case is considered a
signal line, and it's just attached to the web. So

(33:51):
they're looking for signals like vibrations from the web. Yeah.
It's like, uh, it's like being the laziest fisherman, the
one that just throws out the thing with the bomber
and then just start drinking beer and reading their outdoor
readers readers digests, and then when they feel something, they're like,
oh man, i'm fishing exactly. Yeah, it's that kind of spider.

(34:15):
Uh here's the other neat thing. When a web is
no longer useful, many times the spider will eat it
and recycle that silk. Yeah, which is amazing. It breaks
down the proteins and it uses it again later. Yeah,
a little recyclers. Pretty smart things. All right, Well, let's
take our final break here and then we will talk
about some other hunting methods that spiders use right after this.

(34:55):
All right, so we're back and we're talking about other
hunting methods. Um As, I said, this great documentary I
watched said that spiders or some of the maybe the
best most efficient, fully realized predator on the planet. Dude,
like as well as a shark. Yeah, as good as
a shark. Spider would kill a shark in a second,

(35:16):
that he was the size of a shark. You might, definitely.
And by the way we did our little p s
a with snakes, you shouldn't kill spiders either, or no,
I mean, like you want to leave them around because
they're like taking care of a lot of pests that
you don't want. I talked about mosquitoes. I hate mosquitoes.
Who doesn't. I'll kill a mosquito. So a spider will

(35:37):
eat a mosquito in a second. It's like frog legs
to them. Again, nothing but rock legs. Uh. So let's
talk about some of the other ways that spiders can hunt. Um,
some have venom, Like they're waiting a little trap door
that they've made a little hole in the ground. They
build a little web web door on a hinge like

(35:58):
a tiger pit, and they'll jump out and you can
see video of this online too, or they'll let you
fall into the hole and then they're on you. Like
that snake. Yeah, this tarantula ate a viper man. That's crazy.
And when I say ate, it like it's not like
a snake eat something and it's just not there anymore. Like, uh,
you know, it sucked out whatever it could eat from

(36:18):
the snake after paralyzing it with its venom, which is
where we are. Um. Wolf spiders, Yeah, they're land spider.
They don't hunt with the web. They stalk their prey.
Uh huh yeah, which is terrifying. Yeah, jumping spiders do
that too. Yeah. The difference, So jumping spiders stalk their
prey kind of like a cat. But when a cat

(36:40):
is ready to pounce, it will pounce and run. A
jumping spider just pounces and it lands to work. Yeah,
and your toast. You ever seen the wolf spider when
it has all the babies on its back, No jump
off and run around. That's something that I think is
is worth meant in here. Yeah, it's terrifying. So you said,

(37:02):
a lot of a lot of spiders. Um, a lot
of spiders will create like a cocoon for their spider
lyings with silk, and a lot of spider species will
just like there you go, kids, you're have a good life,
and the spider mom goes off. Wolf spiders carry their
cocoons around with them and then, like you're saying, even

(37:23):
after the spiderlings hatch, the spiderlings just hit your ride
on the back of their mom for a while until
they're old enough to start taking care of themselves, and
then they spread out, which is really unusual for spiders
as far as reproduction goes. It's crazy looking. I've seen
wolf spiders that, um maybe it was a noise that
frightened them or something, but all of a sudden they're

(37:43):
you know, did you see uh that vine that that
dude posted from Mexico and the beginning of two thousand
and fourteen that became really famous. It looks like a
little to pay on like a blue plastic bin. I
don't like where this is going. And he goes up
in like poke, and all of a sudden, the two
pages turns into about ten thousand spiders. But it's not

(38:05):
actually spiders. They're harvestment like Daddy long legs. Daddy long
legs aren't actually spiders there arachnids. Oh, is that the deal? Um?
And one of the things that differentiates them is this
packing clumping um instinct that they'll four. It looks like
just this bad tube page just sitting there, but it's
really a bunch of spiders or a bunch of harvestment

(38:28):
and what no terrible toothpage. And what they're doing is, um,
they're maintaining moisture in like a hot, dry environment by
by clumping together and kind of pooling their moisture. And
then as the sun goes down, they'll like spread out again.
But if you go up and touch them like this
guy did on vine so it's just like this ninth
second loop over and over again. Um, they just separate

(38:49):
and scatter everywhere. It's pretty neat. Have you done it?
Don't be dumb on the Granddaddy long Legs supposedly being
the most poisonous. I looked into it. No, I kind
of ran into a wall because it's like, so this
is what I found. Yes, that they they the old
wives tale is that they are the most poisonous around,

(39:10):
but their mouths are too small to puncture human skin.
But if they could, they could kill you. I don't
believe that. So if it's a harvestman, that's and apparently
there's a bunch of different arachnids that are called Granddaddy
long legs. But if it's the harvestman, then it's completely
false because not only do they not have venom, they
don't even have fangs because they couldn't bite you. But

(39:30):
another caveat to that is is that although they can
survive if like they lose a leg, and this is
an adaptation to where like, if a predator has their leg,
they'll just pull it off themselves and run off. And
the guy's like, oh man, they can't regrow their legs.
They can survive without them, they can't regrow them, so
they'll have like just whatever seven legs. Yes, so you

(39:51):
don't want to pull the legs off a granddaddy long
legs because it's not growing back. Kids. Yeah, it's not
cool to do. Yeah, the torture insects. Don't listen to Ricky,
your Billy, you're Tommy or whoever is telling you that
their legs are going to grow back. Now, they're going nowhere, nowhere. Um,
all right, So we were talking about venom. Um. Most

(40:11):
spiders have pretty much the same procedure when killing prey.
They have um. The weapon is these a pair of
jointed jaws called calorisari. I think, are you're gonna go
with that? I'm going with cellisari? All right? Um? Cellisari, calorisari,

(40:34):
cellis celli Sara Man. Some people like this stuff. Some
people think it's some people are like, I'm done with
these guys forever. But each part of this jaw has
two parts of the basil segment, which is the bulk
of it, and then these fangs, and just like snakes,
these fangs act as little needles, and they have a

(40:56):
venom duct that they'll squeeze the venom through the fang,
just a snake. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable, and the venom
is very frequently a neurotoxin. Paralyzes the prey like a snake,
and then um, I think you're really funky with the
spider after that point. So it's it's taken down a mouse,
it's paralyzed it. The mouse is like, oh god, I'm

(41:18):
locked in. I can experience everything, but I can't move.
And this is horrible because now I'm being killed by
a spider. It's like the anesthesia awareness exactly, you know,
but even worse than that. But there's not a doctor.
It's a spider. You're being operated on by a spider,
and um, the spider is now injecting you know that

(41:41):
you're paralyzed. Now it's injecting you with digestive enzymes, and
you will be liquefied from the inside out because, like
we said, spiders eat nothing but soup essentially, yeah, their
entire life. But the soup that they eat doesn't start
out as a soup. Instead, it starts out as must
will in tissue and all that kind of stuff inside

(42:02):
a mouse, and then once it liquefies, the spider will
suck all that stuff out and then that's its food
and it takes like frog legs to it. The actual
fangs themselves, Um can work a couple of different ways.
In the case of a tarantulas, um, it works like
an axe the fangs swing down, and uh Irannium morphs,

(42:23):
which are the most dominant suborder, they act as little pinchers,
which is better, Yeah, because I think the tarantules need
to actually pin something against something to swing those little
fang axes down. Yeah, Whereas if you're an rannium morph like,
your pinchers are just using the pressure created by the
other pincher to puncture right your prey. So what does

(42:45):
this mean for us? Dude, you get bit by a
spider venomous spider, are you going to die? Uh? No,
the chances are pretty high that you're not going to
die as in a healthy adult human. Yeah. I think
that the across the entire world, the morbidity rate of

(43:06):
a spider bite is like ten. But even for ones
that we think are so deadly, like um, the brown
recluse spider, morbidity rates were at five percent before we
discovered an evenin so I'm gonna feel good. No, And
there's actually some nasty, nasty videos on YouTube. There's a

(43:26):
guy the video the worst one. He basically created a
video diary of like him just filming his foot with
the brown recluse bite and just talking about like how
nasty it is, and he stopped because he thought no
one wanted to see it. And everybody's like, where's more videos?
What's going on now? So we started like posting him
all the time. But I think it says um brown

(43:50):
recluse spider bite disturbing video. After three months, put those
words into YouTube and it will bring up this dude's
foot and it looks like a giant cabbage patch kid
and there's a it looks like have you ever seen
um Requiem for a Dream? Remember the end where he's
got that mess that on the top of a cabbage

(44:13):
patch kid's foot And people wanted more, more, more, Yeah,
which proves my theory that the internet is thunder dumb.
But this guy is like it's so gross, like you
could easily fit two fingers into this spider bite. And
the reason why is because this guy's suffered necrosis, which
is a a side effect of the brown recluses toxins

(44:36):
uh and if untreated, you're probably again you're not gonna die,
it's gonna hurt like crazy. He was going to a
doctor through all this though, right, Yeah, he had to.
You'd have to be just totally psychotic to have your
foot look like this and not go seek medical. It's
looking better today Thursday. Yeah. Um, but the the the
you can suffer severe like scarring and tissue damage, but

(44:59):
you're probably dobably not gonna die. But it hurts because
they affect our ion channels, right yeah. Um. Kristen Conger,
I think had wrote a great side article about how
um deadly spiders work, on how stuff works, and for
instance that the Sydney funnel web venom it's a delta
um atrocotoxin and it is an amino acid chain that

(45:23):
uh causes damage to nerve cells. Yeah, it makes our
nerves cells like fire, uh excitedly, like constantly. I think
it's I think some toxins, when they affect our nerve cells,
it just makes them fire over and over and over again,
which affects their performance. It's not what you want. And uh,

(45:44):
as far as no susceptor cells, you are just experiencing
tremendous amounts of pain. Right or before nineteen eighty when
they discovered the funnel web anti vennon, you could die
from it. But since then they say no one has
died from it. No, and the the funnel web. This
is the one that's routinely pointed out as the world's

(46:06):
deadliest spider, although Kristen points out there's no real scientific
consensus on that because there's not that many spiders that
really even have a chance to be considered deadly to humans. Um.
But the funnel the Sydney funnel web, which lives in
the mile radius around Sydney, Australia, right in the city right,

(46:26):
Um is is I guess if you really pressed uh science, science,
almost said scientologists, he pressed a spider researcher, Um, they
would probably say the Sydney funnel Web. And one of
the reasons why is because it's fangs, it's pincers can
pierce human toenail. Yeah, and they're aggressive, like if you

(46:49):
want to get out of here, they may not get
out of there. They may say, oh, yeah, I'm coming. Yeah,
they like eat a can of spinach and come at you. Scary.
I think there's one in Brazil too, called the wandering
spider Brazilian wandering and it is um has been cited
as the deadliest as well because it can inject up
to two milligrams of venom, which is just that's a

(47:09):
lot of venom for a spider. So it is a
hunting spider as well, and it is also aggressive. So
I'm glad that most venomous are the most aggressive. Yeah,
it's fine how that works out. Uh, so how do
we get spiders, chuck, Where do they come from? Well?
They they have sex, Yes, they do. Spider sex is

(47:30):
pretty fascinating. Not as interesting as snake sex. Maybe maybe
it is. I no, no, I don't think so let's
talk about it. Okay, So what we said that spiders
are almost exclusively solitary hunters. Yeah, they don't hang out
with their families. So if you're a male and you're like,
I gotta reproduce, I gotta pass these jeans along. Um,

(47:54):
you're going to seek out a female spider. But it's
not the easiest thing in the world to do. Now,
only do you have to find a female spider, you
have to find one of reproductive age and ready to reproduce. Yeah,
and not eat you. But that's a big that's a
big point. But in the case of the black widow,
you're gonna get eaten anyway. But um, females are way

(48:15):
bigger than the males, which is one way that males
get eaten. Yeah. I saw a video of a black
widows mating and it looked like a little baby spider
trying to mate with a big, big spider. But it's
just a male and a female, so they the female
when it decides. All right, I guess I have to
do this. I have to be defiled. I'm gonna lay

(48:36):
down a drag line sort of like a snake does,
covered in pheromones wherever I go. I'm just gonna leave
this scented trail behind me on this drag line. Or
if it's a web based spider, they may lay pheromones
over the web right and just let the wind do
its work. Yeah. Either way, these spiders are going to
pick up on us and be like, Okay, I'm heading

(48:57):
that direction. Yeah, I'm gonna follow this drag line. Who's
pull a little self down this drag line and finally
I get to the female. Uh. Although we should point
out another creepy thing that spiders will do is they're
so desperate to mate that they'll hang around females that
are too young until they get to the right age,

(49:17):
Like they'll hang around the playground and it's so creepy
and predatory. They'll be like, oh, she's she's close. Let
me wait a few weeks. So yeah, they're like, I
don't feel like searching. I'm just gonna wait. So, um,
when when they find the female, that's just step one.
Step two is convincing her that you're not in dinner

(49:39):
and that you're not trying to encroach on your territory. Right,
You're like, I just wanted mate. Uh. And there's some
different ways that spiders do this. So, like with a
jumping spider and species that have like good vision, they
may do a little dance, Yeah, a little look at me,
look at me over here. Yeah, well spiders will do that. Uh.
And then spiders again that are web based, the male

(50:01):
may come up and like play a little a little
tune on the web. Yeah, like plucking a guitar string,
exactly for the female to be like, oh, I see
what you're after. She's like, is that Jose Feliciano. I'm
such a sucker for Jose Feliciano. So once they have
convinced the female spider that they are there to have

(50:23):
some fun, they're not food, they're not a threat. They
like the tune of my guitar or the way I dance.
There's a lot of work that goes into it. The
female finally is like, all right, well, let me just
get into position here and send you the right signal
that I'm ready to go. And I might shake my
web or something um if I don't like you, or

(50:45):
I might just crawl away, but otherwise here I am. Um,
let's do this right. And so, like any other animal
on the planet, they copulate by putting their reproductive organs together.
They don't couple. What you're being awaite, they don't couple
like snakes even do. Um. The male deposits sperm onto

(51:06):
a little web and then picks it up. It's basically
like ivf yes, but with um petted palps the little
forearms that the spider has. Yeah, he deposits that sperm
onto the general opening of the female, and I guess
the female stores it there near the ovaries. Yeah. She's like,
smell you later. Yeah, if he's lucky. If he's not lucky,

(51:29):
she turns around and eats him afterwards, right, which the
male spider is fine with because all it wants to
do is reproduce. But then at some point later on,
the female will be like, oh, yeah, that's right, I've
got that sperm stored away. I'll fertilize these eggs and
there you have it. Yeah. And then they lay like
we said, either um, hundreds or thousands of eggs in

(51:49):
one go. And they may encase them like we said.
They may carry him around, they may abandon the eggs
entirely and just say good luck. What's crazy to me? Spiders?
So they live, um, months, up to years. Apparently tarantulas
can live up to twenty years, like a pet tarantula.
But one thing I found was that a lot of

(52:10):
spiders can go up to a year between feeding. Yeah,
between feeding, Yes, and that's surprising. Yeah, spiders fascinating. Yeah.
And Um, as I said in the Snakes one, I
don't kill spiders. But nothing would terrify me more than
a tarantula crawling up my arm. And that's funny too,

(52:31):
because tarantulas are not poisonous to humans. You can have
an allergic reaction to a tarantula, but in most people
who are allergic to tarantulas, you're allergic to their hair.
So crawling on you would would create maybe like a
skin rash or something. The venom is probably not going
to do much more than you might not even have

(52:53):
a reaction to it. You could feel pain from their
their fangs puncturing your skin, just like if I took
like a sewing needle and puncture just gonna be that
same kind of sensation. Um, I think it'd more just
be being freaked out that a tarantula is attacking you
would be the biggest setback from being attacked by a tarantula. Yeah,
I wouldn't even need to be attacked just you know,

(53:14):
you see movies where actors have to do that or
let one call over their face or something. There's no way,
no way, I could never ever ever do it. There's
I have a great Umi story when she was a kid.
She was at um one of the Smithsonians or whatever,
and they brought in like a thing full of tarantulas
and set them down. I think they actually dumped them
in the center of the kids or whatever. You just

(53:37):
got up and started really ran out of the room,
and her teacher had to run after her to catch
her again. She's like, you guys are idiots for sitting
here and thinking. I mean, I'm definitely in a rachnophobe
um oh, are you like died in the woold really
genuine to a certain degree, Like when I see a spider,
I'm not I'm I don't run away screaming, but if

(53:59):
it's proximity, if like one was on me, I would
not enjoy that experience of any size. And uh yeah,
so I'm I'm a bit of an anaphobe. What about
you? You You don't care? I mean, yeah, it's more like
when I can see they're the features and everything that
I'm really like because they're freaky creatures. Yeah, but I

(54:22):
loved my garden or weaver. I wasn't like that's you know,
it's someone are just beautiful, like the ones that are
like bright yellow and black, and like there's a lot
of really fascinating spiders. But no, I don't. I don't
want to be the focus of one's attention. I guess
is what it comes down to. Yeah, like when I'm
hiking through the woods and you walk your face walks
through a spider web, that is like, yeah, I did

(54:45):
not react. Well, yeah, like a little little girl. What
about the movie Rechnaphobia like that one? Yeah it was
good first time. I think I think so too. Yeah,
I'll sign off on that one. Was it Bill Pullman? Uh?
Was he in that or just annuals? Which one? Jeff,
Jeff Daniels and John Goodman. No, he was seeing that.

(55:06):
Yeah he was the external. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah,
good flick. So that spiders everybody, Uh, if you want
to know more about them, Oh, chuck, we didn't talk
about the diving spider, one of the most fascinating spiders
of all. Yeah, we gotta, we gotta put that in. Yeah,
it's segues with our diving bell episode because they basically,
we've a little ceiling of spider web at the surface

(55:29):
of the water. No, underneath the water. Oh is it
underneath a little bit? Totally? Okay, So they'll we've a
little like ceiling, like a little parachute, and then they'll
take air bubbles under the air, one by one until
it's a little diving bell, right, And these spiders breathe
like any other spider above land, but they live underwater
almost all of their life, in this little pocket of

(55:50):
air that it builds for itself. And those are the
ones that will eat fish man. That's crazy awesome. Yeah,
there's all kinds of great documentaries online about spiders. They all,
unfortunately are sort of salacious, you know, with the music
and all this stuff. Um, it's fascinating, I think. Uh,
if you want to know more about spiders, you can
type those words or well that word into the search

(56:11):
part how stuff works dot com. And you can also
go check out the podcast page on Stuff you Should
Know dot com for this episode. It's got linked so
most of the stuff we've talked about. Uh. And since
I said, uh, search bars somewhere, it's time for listener mail.
I'm gonna call this dog blood donation. Remember in our
blood Types episode, I was surprised to know that animals

(56:34):
could donate blood as well, even though it makes perfect sense.
This is from Kara um or Carra. Hey, guys, I've
been listening for about four years and you guys keep
me company on my long commute and when I have
to drive the tractor. Uh. One year ago, we got
a call from some acquaintances of ours asking how much
our dog weighed. We didn't know them super well, but
being open minded, we said fifty six pounds and asked, uh.

(56:55):
They asked if we would be willing to let our
dog be a blood donor for their dog because as
their area was out of dog blood. Their dog had
been battling in a cute autoimmune issue for several days
and needed a dog over fifty pounds to be a
donor to get just through the night. Being animal lovers
and knowing my dog was healthy and fit, I didn't hesitate.
So we brought Hatchet in and they did a quick

(57:17):
test to see if the bloods were compatible, which was
basically swirling them together. They were a match, and we
proceeded with the transfusion. We didn't get to watch the process,
but Hatch came out about an hour later, a little drowsy,
but still his regular self to me exactly. He was
a little lazy the next day or two, but made
a fine recovery, and the other dog ended up making

(57:38):
a full recovery despite a bleak diagnosis. UM, if you
have a dog, I suggest finding friends with dogs fifty
pounds or more would be willing to be blood donors
in case of an emergency. Dog blood is often scarce.
So thanks guys, you've made me a champ at the
trivia table. That is Kara in Lexington, Kentucky. Thanks a

(57:59):
lot care. That's a great p s A yeah, and
she sent a little picture of Hatchet, and Hatchet looks
like a fine, fine dog. It was great. If you
want to let us know how your dog saved a life,
you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email to
stuff podcast, to how stuff works dot com, and you

(58:22):
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