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Spiders are much smarter than you think

knowablemagazine.org

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Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#131

Post by agumonkey »

uggwar wrote: post #129
agumonkey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something that gets to me anytime I see animals with their offsprings. A documentary about octopuses last moments in life, really shook me. It might be interpretation/anthropomorphism but anyway, apparently after laying eggs, the octo mom will breath out water (warmed by her body) around them. The process lasts a while and when she's exhausted she spends the remaining energy to swim as far as possible and die…

The Octopus Teacher on netflix is highly recommended, if you haven't watched it yet. Octopuses are amazing creatures!

oh yeah, for programmers, their neural structure is obviously fascinating

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#133

Post by andai »

cmsefton wrote: post #115
bryans wrote: 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…

It's worth mentioning to check the species first before putting them back out. Some spiders are house spiders, and can't really survive outdoors. I generally put them into my garden shed or, if possible, into the loft instead, but most of the time, I just leave them alone.

I've always wondered about that, did they evolve after the invention of houses?

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#134

Post by obiwan14 »

bryans wrote: 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…

Nice story. The interesting part is, if you'd been able to "talk" (actually thought transfer) to the spider directly, as a few people I know are able to, it wouldn't have needed to do all that leg-waving.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#136

Post by jwdunne »

uggwar wrote: post #129
agumonkey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something that gets to me anytime I see animals with their offsprings. A documentary about octopuses last moments in life, really shook me. It might be interpretation/anthropomorphism but anyway, apparently after laying eggs, the octo mom will breath out water (warmed by her body) around them. The process lasts a while and when she's exhausted she spends the remaining energy to swim as far as possible and die…

The Octopus Teacher on netflix is highly recommended, if you haven't watched it yet. Octopuses are amazing creatures!

I was thinking of this exact documentary when reading the comment above.

It was fascinating how the octopus seemed to have trust and opened up to him.

Disagreed with his reasoning when she was being attacked - if she’s a friend, help her. Sitting back and recording her getting hurt because he didn’t want to “interfere with the natural processes” didn’t make much sense.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#137

Post by andai »

swayvil wrote: post #69

Spiders can also get high on marijuana. It's true! They have the same thc-receptors in their brain as we do. It follows that they can get baked, enjoy an expanded consciousness and benefit from hallucinogenic insights just as we humans do. So get a spider high today.

Interesting... I reckon they need a much smaller dose than us though, wouldn't even a single puff lead to an uncomfortably intense trip?

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#138

Post by [deleted] »

smortaz wrote: post #126

they are! once i found a baby spider in the jacuzzi and just let it stay there out of laziness. it set up shop in one of the water jet holes. it gradually grew and started catching the real enemy, the mosquitoes. as a “thank you”, once every couple of days i’d catch a fly and feed it to him. i’d tap the electric fly swatter on the jacuzzi wall to drop the fly. this tapping sound quickly became sort of a pavlovian aff…

[deleted]

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#139

Post by adamgordonbell »

Klaster_1 wrote: post #4

Talking about Portias, I recommend reading "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky, it's about the process of uplifting spiders and how humans re-establish contacts with them. Another great book about smart "spiders" is "A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge, my favorite in the "Zones of Thought" series.

A Deepness in the Sky is so good. The spiders are all experienced through the radio, which makes them more relatable in a way.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#140

Post by mayankkaizen »

whatshisface wrote: post #118
bryans wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to do the exact same thing once -- the mother ran off as I tried to gather her and the sac into a box -- and you could see both the panic as she watched the sac being taken away, and the relief when she was reunited.

As a counterpoint, how could you possibly see panic on a spider's "face?"

Panic isn't merely a facial expression. It is body language, actions and may be some other things.
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