Music:

Camiidae webpage: https://camiidae.carrd.co/

-Jarabi – Sona Jobarteh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oToZfPGMMBY

-Moth: Music for bugs – Camiidae:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmtW8GGVWAw

-Ant: Bugs odyssey – Camiidae:
https://youtu.be/IgVbm8dydgw?si=VkKH5MYyI2PajiPc

-Losing your marbels – The Soundlings:
https://youtu.be/phfCOVz-tXo?si=sySI5alBbqkJHdZV

-Bumblebee: Music for bugs – Camiidae:
https://youtu.be/V5oaKRZ_bCc?si=EwTFmHejhtTJG8Tb

-Got him from behind – The Soundlings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RnPEfOeCL0

-Playful gecko – Camiidae:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzQAUmExHdg

Sound effects:

References:

“Ananse | West African Folklore, Mythology & Legends | Britannica.” Accessed October 30, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ananse.

“Arachne | Weaving, Spinning, Athena | Britannica,” September 4, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Arachne.

Barth, Friedrich G. “No Spider Without Poison.” In A Spider’s World: Senses and Behavior, edited by Friedrich G. Barth, 29–33. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04899-3_5.

Blackledge, Todd A., Nikolaj Scharff, Jonathan A. Coddington, Tamas Szüts, John W. Wenzel, Cheryl Y. Hayashi, and Ingi Agnarsson. “Reconstructing Web Evolution and Spider Diversification in the Molecular Era.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 13 (March 31, 2009): 5229–34. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0901377106.

Frynta, Daniel, Markéta Janovcová, Iveta Štolhoferová, Šárka Peléšková, Barbora Vobrubová, Petra Frýdlová, Hana Skalíková, Petr Šípek, and Eva Landová. “Emotions Triggered by Live Arthropods Shed Light on Spider Phobia.” Scientific Reports 11, no. 1 (November 15, 2021): 22268. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01325-z.

Kuhn-Nentwig, Lucia, Reto Stöcklin, and Wolfgang Nentwig. “Venom Composition and Strategies in Spiders: Is Everything Possible?☆☆Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Lev G. Magazanik, Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, RAS, St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Occasion of His 80th Anniversary.” In Advances in Insect Physiology, edited by Jérôme Casas, 40:1–86. Spider Physiology and Behaviour. Academic Press, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-387668-3.00001-5.

Landová, Eva, Markéta Janovcová, Iveta Štolhoferová, Silvie Rádlová, Petra Frýdlová, Kristýna Sedláčková, and Daniel Frynta. “Specificity of Spiders among Fear- and Disgust-Eliciting Arthropods: Spiders Are Special, but Phobics Not so Much.” PLOS ONE 16, no. 9 (September 23, 2021): e0257726. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257726.

Shahriari-Namadi, Marziae, Hamid Reza Tabatabaei, and Aboozar Soltani. “Entomophobia and Arachnophobia Among School-Age Children: A Psychological Approach.” Shiraz E-Medical Journal In Press, no. In Press (June 12, 2018). https://doi.org/10.5812/semj.64824.

Vassilevski, A. A., S. A. Kozlov, and E. V. Grishin. “Molecular Diversity of Spider Venom.” Biochemistry (Moscow) 74, no. 13 (December 1, 2009): 1505–34. https://doi.org/10.1134/S0006297909130069.

Vetter, Richard S., and Geoffrey K. Isbister. “Medical Aspects of Spider Bites.” Annual Review of Entomology 53, no. Volume 53, 2008 (January 1, 2008): 409–29. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ento.53.103106.093503.

Vollrath, Fritz, and Paul Selden. “The Role of Behavior in the Evolution of Spiders, Silks, and Webs.” Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 38, no. Volume 38, 2007 (December 1, 2007): 819–46. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.37.091305.110221.

Wiederhold, Brenda K., and Stéphane Bouchard. “Arachnophobia and Fear of Other Insects: Efficacy and Lessons Learned from Treatment Process.” In Advances in Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders, edited by Brenda K. Wiederhold and Stéphane Bouchard, 91–117. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-8023-6_5.

Yankah, Kwesi. “THE AKAN TRICKSTER CYCLE: MYTH OR FOLKTALE?,” n.d.

-Herberstein, M. E. (2011). Spider Behaviour : Flexibility and Versatility. Cambridge University Press.

-Santerre, M. (2013). Spiders : Morphology, Behavior and Geographic Distribution. Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Accessed October 4, 2020.

-Weng, Y. (2019). Spiders. Salem Press Encyclopedia of Science.

-Gray, Mike (26 de noviembre de 2018) Spider Origins. Obtenido de Australian Museum:
https://australian.museum/learn/animals/spiders/spider-origins/

-University of Manachester. (5 de febrero de 2018) Spiders used to have tails says new research. Obtenido de The University of Manchester:
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/spiders-used-to-have-tails-says-new-research/

-Zielinski, Sarah (24 de diciembre de 2008) Spiders Are Not As Old As We Thought. Obtenido de Smithsonian Magazine:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/spiders-are-not-as-old-as-we-thought-3312099/ 

Script

A solitary spider was slowly climbing a tree. According with the tales from the west African tradition, his name was Anansi. Anansi had the objective to reach the Nest of the Hornets, and once there, capture them. He had brought only a Groud full of water with him.

When he finally reached a branch close enough to the buzzing nest. Anansi stands, he opened the Groud and drenched himself in water, then he threw the rest of the water over the nest.

Immediately an infuriated swarm of hornets flew out the nest, and just before they start to sting him to death, Anansi said “ohh it seems that it has being raining cats and dogs. Look, I am completely soaked too! It stopped for now, but it will definitely resume soon. But don’t worry, if you don’t want to get wet you can take shelter in this groud.” Given such a logical argumentation, the hornets followed the advice, and when the last of the hornets had gone into the groud, Anansi put the lid again.

This was, not the first, but the third capture of this type made by Anansi. He has captured, with similar cunning, The Python and the Tiger, and was about to bring all of them to the great Nyame, the almighty God of the Sky. In exchange, The god has promised to give Anansi all the stories of the world. Anansi then became the lord of stories and all narratives[1].

-------------

-musical intro

Interview 1

The person that you are hearing is Diego Parra

Interview 2

Diego knows a lot of spiders, and for this I asked him to help me to disentangle this mesh of confusion, misinformation and void of knowledge around an animal that needs not much of an introduction.

Greetings my friend and welcome to “it’s not a monster” on defense of the misunderstood, the despised, the vilified or just… the ugly ones. I am David Andres Quinche and today we talk about spiders

Interview 3

I really liked Diego’s description about spiders, it summarizes very well the essence of a spiders and how important are their webs for them, but before we jump into that. We should, as usual, start from the basic question… what is a spider?

Interview 4

We call spiders to all members of the order Araneae, which belongs to the class Arachnida. These are also arthropods, like the insects, but they differ in a couple of key aspects.

Insects have 6 legs, Arachnids have 8. Insects have antennas, Arachnids doesn’t. Insects has mandibles and Arachnids a couple of fang-like structures called quelicerae. Insects usually have wings and…

Interview 5

But spiders are not the only type of Arachnid, there are 11 more orders, each one with its own peculiarities and identities, completely different to spiders. We actually already mentioned one of them in another episode, the very small and tough Mites.

The main anatomical features that set spiders apart from the other arachnids are: first, their segmentation, instead of having their segments visible, like the scorpions, or completely merge in one round body, like the Mites, Spiders have their body segments merged in two distinctive body sections, the cephalothorax, which is kind of like the head and main body, and the abdomen, which is like a big butt. The other difference is the lack of any type of tail or sting.

So, if you have seen Lord of the rings, I have news for you… Shelob is not a spider, She would be a… different type of arachnid, one of its own kind. Spiders are also special for their silk, but we are going to discuss that later.

But not matter how fascinating I found the anatomy of these creatures, if I gave a very detailed description of their anatomy, you would most likely find it disgusting, or even… frightening

Interview 6

So one thing is fear to spiders, which is quite common, and other one is Arachnophobia, which is a pathological condition, and is associated with, and I quote “a marked, persistent, and excessive anxiety upon actual or anticipated exposure to spiders”[2].

Interview 7

This evolutionary hypothesis proposes that long time ago our ancestors coexisted with very threatening spiders. And for this reason, the innate rejection and fear to spiders evolved as a survival strategy. And then this was something that got fixed in our genes.

But... in order to this hypothesis be true, spiders need to be a real thread, at least back in those times.

How dangerous spiders really are, does they bite?

Interview 8

However…

Interview 9

Ok, there is something that you should understand about how spiders eat. As I told you before, instead of mandibles, they have two fanglike structures called chelicerae, and yes they can move them but… they cannot grind the food with them. So, how do they do?

Interview 10

These are called neurotoxic venoms, specialized in cause cardiac and respiratory arrests

Interview 11

These are called proteolytic venoms, specialized in break down proteins and decompose tissues, like our gastric juices

Interview 12

So… basically all spiders rely on a liquid diet, like a protein-shake addict gymbro, or your soup enjoyer grandma, and all, except one species, are predators, which means that, in order to eat, they need to have some kind of proteolytic venom, but they usually have neurotoxic venoms too[3], depending on the type of prey that they capture and how do they subdue them[4].

Interview 13

From the more of 43.000 species of spiders that exist, only 0,5% are potentially dangerous to humans. Most of them cannot even bite us. There are only 50 spider genus with large enough chelicerae to pierce trough human skin, and for most of these spiders, even in the rare case that one bite you, usually the venom would have just small effects[5].

Interview 14

In case that you are allergic, you might have some reaction

Interview 15

It is important to stress how weird are these very dangerous bites[6]. There are in total no more than 100 reliable reports of deaths caused from spider bites in the hole twentieth century, far behind the ones caused by bees, wasps or scorpions[7]. And there are very few spider species that could be this dangerous, most of them are concentrated in south-America and Australia, in non-urban areas, places where most of the danger lies on the fact that it might take a lot of time to reach proper medical treatment, because even being so serious these bites can still be treated medically[8].

So… spiders are not a real thread, and there are some researchers that propose that they weren’t a thread even for the case of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, at least not in such degree that could have caused an evolutionary change in our genes, an innate spider fear[9].

So maybe is not that we are afraid of spiders per se, one study suggest that this fear of spiders is an extension of an instinctive fear of another related group of arachnids, the scorpions, whose venom is more dangerous for us[10]. Other possibility is that we are afraid of their terryfing fang-like chelicerae, which are so characteristic in big spiders, because we tend to associate them with the fangs of other venomous creatures.

However, whatever is the connection of thoughts that we are doing, the true is that spider bites do not represent a substantial thread to us, and knowing this should help a lot to reduce the fear, no? Well, there is something else.

Besides the evolutionary argument. Fear and phobia to spiders is a learned behavior, which usually develops in childhood. There are two main ways in which this could happens: one option is the fobia start from a specific idea which, gradually, grows and gets deeper in the mind of the person, like the aforementioned misbelief that spiders are dangerous.  The other option is that the person suffered a sudden and unexpected exposition to the bug. Let’s say they got sting when they were kids, they found one in the shower, etc[11].

There is actually a lot of cases of bug fears that started by finding these animals in spaces that we are not used to find them. So basically, I would say that we are afraid of these creatures by their potential to invade our personal space.

Interview 16

I know that this sounds like a cliché but… I can assure you that they are way more afraid on you that you on them. I mean, think on this, you are a huge giant that could represent a real thread for them, and they don’t have the same anti-mammals’ venoms as the scorpions, so they just tend to avoid big creatures. Besides, I am going to go deeper on this later but they don’t have a good sight, so when you stand close and they stay completely static, is not because they are lurking, pondering the precise moment to jump on you… is just that they are not seeing you, if you would accidentally touch them, you would probable freak the hell out of them, but I am not encourage you to go and bother any spider that you find! As I told you in the rodent episode about corner rats: Be always prudent and polite with our wild friends.

Also, except for a very special group that we will discuss other day, they don’t have a great mobility in order to jump or quickly crawl on you.

Interview 17

Interview 18

Silk! Thread! This is the point that I wanted to arrive, spiders are one of the most diverse terrestrial arthropods orders, despite the fact that they cannot fly, they can neither form super complex societies like the bees or ants, they are picky eaters and don’t have the same diversity in diets as the mites… but you know what they have? silk. I will explain why spidersilk is so special in the next episode.

------------------------------------------

You can find references and extra material at the description. This episode was produced by me, David Quinche Giraldo, and with the collaboration of our interviewee, Diego Parra.

Thanks for listening! And see you next time.

[1] Kwesi Yankah, “THE AKAN TRICKSTER CYCLE: MYTH OR FOLKTALE?,” n.d.; “Ananse | West African Folklore, Mythology & Legends | Britannica,” accessed October 30, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ananse.

[2] Brenda K. Wiederhold and Stéphane Bouchard, “Arachnophobia and Fear of Other Insects: Efficacy and Lessons Learned from Treatment Process,” in Advances in Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders, ed. Brenda K. Wiederhold and Stéphane Bouchard (Boston, MA: Springer US, 2014), 91–117, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-8023-6_5.

[3] A. A. Vassilevski, S. A. Kozlov, and E. V. Grishin, “Molecular Diversity of Spider Venom,” Biochemistry (Moscow) 74, no. 13 (December 1, 2009): 1505–34, https://doi.org/10.1134/S0006297909130069.

[4] Friedrich G. Barth, “No Spider Without Poison,” in A Spider’s World: Senses and Behavior, ed. Friedrich G. Barth (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2002), 29–33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04899-3_5.

[5] Daniel Frynta et al., “Emotions Triggered by Live Arthropods Shed Light on Spider Phobia,” Scientific Reports 11, no. 1 (November 15, 2021): 22268, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01325-z.

[6] Barth, “No Spider Without Poison.”

[7] Lucia Kuhn-Nentwig, Reto Stöcklin, and Wolfgang Nentwig, “Venom Composition and Strategies in Spiders: Is Everything Possible?☆☆Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Lev G. Magazanik, Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, RAS, St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Occasion of His 80th Anniversary.,” in Advances in Insect Physiology, ed. Jérôme Casas, vol. 40, Spider Physiology and Behaviour (Academic Press, 2011), 1–86, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-387668-3.00001-5.

[8] Richard S. Vetter and Geoffrey K. Isbister, “Medical Aspects of Spider Bites,” Annual Review of Entomology 53, no. Volume 53, 2008 (January 1, 2008): 409–29, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ento.53.103106.093503.

[9] Frynta et al., “Emotions Triggered by Live Arthropods Shed Light on Spider Phobia.”

[10] Eva Landová et al., “Specificity of Spiders among Fear- and Disgust-Eliciting Arthropods: Spiders Are Special, but Phobics Not so Much,” PLOS ONE 16, no. 9 (September 23, 2021): e0257726, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257726; Frynta et al., “Emotions Triggered by Live Arthropods Shed Light on Spider Phobia.”

[11] Marziae Shahriari-Namadi, Hamid Reza Tabatabaei, and Aboozar Soltani, “Entomophobia and Arachnophobia Among School-Age Children: A Psychological Approach,” Shiraz E-Medical Journal In Press, no. In Press (June 12, 2018), https://doi.org/10.5812/semj.64824.