Be Nice to Spiders!
Don’t jump now, but there’s a spider in your room! It’s lurking in the corner with its long, hairy legs stretched out all around it. Is it ready to pounce and bite you? Is it the kind with lots of eyes? You don’t want to get close enough to tell. I know what you’re thinking — you’ll grab your heaviest shoe to squash the creepy thing. But don’t do that. It’s better to let the spider live.
Why? Because the world needs spiders! (Really!)
Spiders Eat Pests…and Are Eaten
Firstly, spiders are champs at chowing down. They eat between 400 to 800 million tons of insects every year. Some of the bugs they eat are the kinds that destroy the crops we need for food. Hungry spiders keep those crop-eating pests from gobbling up everything in sight. Don’t take my word for it. Norman Platnick, a spider expert, once told The Washington Post, “If spiders disappeared, we would face famine.” Famine! Spiders also eat bugs that annoy us and spread disease, like mosquitos and flies. So, basically, spiders are cleaning up for us and preventing the world from going hungry. Who knew?
Secondly, you’re taking food from others any time you get rid of spiders. Lots of creatures need spiders as a food source. Between 8 to 10,000 predators such as lizards and frogs rely on eight-legged meals. Birds need spiders too — 3,000 to 5,000 species of birds snack on spiders as part of their diet. You wouldn’t want birds, frogs, and lots of other animals to go hungry, would you?
Spiders Could Help Us In Other Ways
There are other reasons why we should be nice to spiders. Most spiders kill their prey with venom. Scientists think that venom could be used to make medicine because it contains stuff that blocks the body from sending pain signals to the brain. It’s thought that there could be as many as 9 million of these blockers in spider venom. But so far only .01% have been studied. It’s possible that one or more of them could become new medicines to treat pain. So if there are no spiders, there’s no venom to study, and maybe we miss out the chance to help a lot of people.
Spider silk could also be useful. More than 40,000 species of spiders make silk in a special part of their body called a gland. Spider silk is stretchy and incredibly strong. A single strand is stronger for its size than a piece of steel! If spider silk could be produced in large amounts, it could be used to make fabrics, bulletproof armor and more. For now, it’s mostly an idea (it’s not easy to farm spiders because they tend to eat each other), but one day spider silk could become an important natural material.
I Promise, They’re Not Out to Get You!
Maybe one way to be nice to spiders is to ask ourselves: what has a spider ever done to me? It’s true that 99% of spiders have venom. But unless you’re a bug, most spider venom is harmless. In the United States, only black widows and brown recluses have bites that can harm people. These bites need a doctor’s care, but they are rarely bad enough to kill. Spiders don’t release much venom when they bite, so only the very young and very old are at risk of death. In Australia, redback spiders and Sydney funnel-web spiders do have venom that can kill a person, but there are treatments for the bites.
Besides, spiders do not go around looking for people to bite. Like any other wild creature, spiders bite when they feel trapped or threatened. They don’t have bones, so spiders are actually pretty fragile. Those big, hairy tarantulas might look scary, but a fall of just a few inches can hurt and even kill them. Spiders truly are more scared of you than you are of them. So leave them alone!
So, the next time you feel the urge to smash a spider, stop and think. Do you really want to kill a helpful creature that’s not causing you any harm? If you can’t stand to have it in your room, use a piece of paper or a magazine to nudge it into a glass and release it outside. (Of course, if you find a black widow, brown recluse, or are in Australia, go get an adult first.) You can even take part in Save a Spider Day, which happens every year on March 14. Be kind to our eight-legged friends!