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Spiders are much smarter than you think

knowablemagazine.org

101–110 of 220 posts

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#101
post #26

I get tired of reading from webpages like this. - Spiders are much smarter than you think - SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER - some text - YOU MAY ALSO LIKE - some text - Shutterstock image with a big description - ... Context switching is hard for the brain. Even in readabilty mode I get substracted by the image descriptions. It's a pitty because it's a nice article.

I guess the article is written for spiders, they have no problem with context switching since they are so smart.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#102
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong, I still find families of baby spiders to be absolutely terrifying in every way, and it takes every bit of my willpower to fight the urge to remove them from existence. But at the end of the day, the key word is family. It's a group of living things, with parents that apparently have the emotional capacity to care about them. Hopefully when you say "get rid of it," that means gently coaxing them in…

You are assuming very human or even mammalian qualities and constructs like "parents/family/emotion" to invertebrates that have no problem cannibalizing their offspring and mates. If they were big enough they would kill you and your family without any hesitation or emotion.

sorry, what? The claim that "parents/family/emotion" are constructs which are limited to (higher) mammals rests on the assumption that these constructs are dependent on i.e. a highly developed cerebral cortex-- and that somehow the cortex is the seat of emotions.

Given that neurotransmitters (adrenaline?) are so instrumental to regulating emotional state, that claim seems highly unlikely.

The most plausible possibility is that all multi-celled beings have some sense of family and parenthood.

And here with the spiders you are presented with evidence of such.

Does a mother spider feel distress with quite the same level of nuance as a mother human? Perhaps not. Is she clearly distressed? absolutely.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#103
post #59
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. Animals don't even have the empathy to outright kill a prey before eating it and will have it dismembered, bleeding out and alive no problem. Nature is beautiful but let's not pretend it's caring or loving. Cats play with their food. Spiders liquefy their preys, melting them from the inside out. Crabs eat their newborn offspring. Do any of these feel bad at all about it? No. Find me an animal who went vega…

Human industrial slaughter where animals are trussed up and dismembered and skinned while still conscious (granted due to failures in the stun mechanism, but there isn't much push to monitor assembly line failures) would beg to differ. Or how about male chicks being liquefied and fed back to the chickens? Add to that the kosher/halal slaughter. This idea that all humanity is 'above' base animal behavior is as ridicul…

>trussed up and dismembered and skinned while still conscious (granted due to failures in the stun mechanism, but there isn't much push to monitor assembly line failures)

There is absolutely push/incentive to monitor and correct for failures in stunning. The stress response it entails in the animal makes for poor quality meat, or even inedible meat that would have to thrown out.

Also, stunning is followed by slaughtering and draining. There is no situation in industrial production in which an animal would be dismembered and skinned alive.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#104
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No species can come even close to humans in killing others without any hesitation. Have you even seen the documentary Earthlings? http://www.nationearth.com/

Oh please. Animals don't even have the empathy to outright kill a prey before eating it and will have it dismembered, bleeding out and alive no problem. Nature is beautiful but let's not pretend it's caring or loving. Cats play with their food. Spiders liquefy their preys, melting them from the inside out. Crabs eat their newborn offspring. Do any of these feel bad at all about it? No. Find me an animal who went vega…

Not every human is vegan like you.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#105
post #59
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. Animals don't even have the empathy to outright kill a prey before eating it and will have it dismembered, bleeding out and alive no problem. Nature is beautiful but let's not pretend it's caring or loving. Cats play with their food. Spiders liquefy their preys, melting them from the inside out. Crabs eat their newborn offspring. Do any of these feel bad at all about it? No. Find me an animal who went vega…

Human industrial slaughter where animals are trussed up and dismembered and skinned while still conscious (granted due to failures in the stun mechanism, but there isn't much push to monitor assembly line failures) would beg to differ. Or how about male chicks being liquefied and fed back to the chickens? Add to that the kosher/halal slaughter. This idea that all humanity is 'above' base animal behavior is as ridicul…

When I was a kid, one day my dad took me to the nearby "meat shop" where they use to slaughter goats in a nearby room of the shop. My dad's aim was to prepare me to go to the meat shop on my own in the near future. What I saw had a very deep impact on me and I decided to not eat meat and fish after that. It took me one and a half years to stop eating meat and fish. What I saw in that shop that day was chilling. Two goat kids were slaughtered in front of their mother(the goat). The goat kids had by now realised that going inside the room meant death, so when the shop owner tried to take the first goat kid into the room the goat kid refused to enter the room and the owner kept pushing and forcing the goat kid inside the room. Seeing this the customers gathered around the shop started laughing. And the goat(the mother of the goat kid) couldn't look at her kid being taken to the slaughter room and was crying for help looking at the laughing customers(I had never heard a goat make such loud and chilling noises)! The same repeated for here second kid. And finally the goat herself was slaughtered after sometime.

Experiencing this horror, I decided there and then that I will not eat meat and fish again to satisfy my tastebuds. It has been years since I left eating meat and fish. But even now when I see non-vegetarian dishes(at home or other places) I have urge to eat non-veg. It is very difficult to leave eating non-veg; it is like addiction. But everytime I have that urge to eat non-veg, that scene from the meat shop plays in front of my eyes. It is very painful.

Another scene that I regularly see in my local area every morning is when cattles are transported in a truck to a near-by mass slaughter house. The trucks are enclosed from all sides with just a slit open for the cattles to look outside so that they do not panic in the metal enclosure. Looking at their eyes one can easily see that they are trying to understand where they are and what is happening. And everytime I see that I say to myself, these unsuspecting defenceless animals are going to face a gruesome death within an hour just to satisfy the appetite of some humans!

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#106
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there's still 5% of spiders that can pierce your skin and inject stuff? That's not very reassuring

According to this report, you have roughly 1 in 50 million chance of death by spider. https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(97)70944-X/pdf So I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

Death doesn't have to be a reason to dislike being bit by a spider. A bite from a tiny little brown recluse is no laughing matter.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#107
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong, I still find families of baby spiders to be absolutely terrifying in every way, and it takes every bit of my willpower to fight the urge to remove them from existence. But at the end of the day, the key word is family. It's a group of living things, with parents that apparently have the emotional capacity to care about them. Hopefully when you say "get rid of it," that means gently coaxing them in…

You are assuming very human or even mammalian qualities and constructs like "parents/family/emotion" to invertebrates that have no problem cannibalizing their offspring and mates. If they were big enough they would kill you and your family without any hesitation or emotion.

If they had "no problem" cannibalizing their offspring, they'd quickly go extinct! In reality, cannibalizing of offspring only occurs in particular circumstances - if conditions are poor enough that most of the young won't survive anyway, for example. In which case their instincts kick in to cannibalize as a way to recoup the energy and try again at a better time. If conditions are right there will instead be a strong instinct to protect the egg sack / young.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#108
post #18

A couple years ago I had an experience with a spider that entirely changed my perspective on them and most insects, and now I make a conscious effort to help them as much as possible, instead of kill or even repel them. This particular spider kept running back and forth between my monitor and a window, and when it'd get to my monitor, it would wave its front legs at me. If I moved to the left, it would run across to…

I keep several tarantulas and a few other spiders, and they are absolutely fascinating! Your description of the spider waving its arms and running from side to side makes me think it was likely a jumping spider. This group of spiders have large eyes and don't build webs to catch prey, and are really cute!

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#109
post #18

A couple years ago I had an experience with a spider that entirely changed my perspective on them and most insects, and now I make a conscious effort to help them as much as possible, instead of kill or even repel them. This particular spider kept running back and forth between my monitor and a window, and when it'd get to my monitor, it would wave its front legs at me. If I moved to the left, it would run across to…

This is a bit more elaborate behaviour than what I have observed from our (small) spiders here, but as a general rule, I don't do anything to spiders in my apartment as well. They keep their territory clean of other insects and do not get into my way, so I like keeping them. Unless the spider is really large, aggressive or poisonous, I do not get why so many people are afraid of them either. Perhaps that the Australian Exception :)

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#110
post #36
post #21

I have a rule, if they're too big, or in a bad position, they go outside, otherwise I leave them, I prefer spiders to mosquitoes

I leave daddy-long legs in the house because they are no issue to humans (just leave unsightly webs) and can prey on spiders I'd rather not have around - red backs, huntsman, etc. Not sure if they eat white-tailed spiders too, but hopefully - we get a few of them. Anything roaming near the kids' bedrooms gets treated more harshly.

I once had a basement full of cellar spiders and killed them all. Literally the next day the basement was FILLED with much more annoying more mobile spiders. One crawled into my water bottle and I didn't realize until I pulled off my tongue.

Cellar spiders are now my best friends. I didn't realize until then, but you can actually pick them up by hand and they don't bite if you're gentle.

I thought my kids not to be afraid of them and they handle them regularly. My wife is another matter and she has a very distinctive spider scream that I can hear from anywhere in the house.

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