Monday, October 10, 2011

Arachnid Musings

There is a daddy longlegs in my tub. I am a spider friendly person, usually. My exception lies with house spiders but I will get to that later. As I perched on the throne and watched sir longlegs, a few questions came to mind. The process of said thoughts was as follows, I imagined myself trying to pick up sir l.l. And him escaping and crawling up my arm (I probably have scared some of you away, but if not, please bear with me, it is interesting what I've learned). That image then made me think of what I've heard, many times, that, daddy long legs are the most venomous spiders there are, but their little jaw things are too weak to penetrate human skin. And that thought made me wonder, what do daddy longlegs eat if they have such weak "teeth"? So off I went to google. Isn't it amazing all the ways that search engine has opened up our grammatical horizons? But back to my throne-musings. Or no, not yet - just one more thing: did you know that if you know you are going to be "sitting" for awhile, you can bring your iPad with you and that makes throne time so much more productive, don't you think? Well, I found out that weak teeth or not, sir l.l. Is quite capable of eating. I had assumed that because I had never seen a l.l. In a web, they didn't spin them. Well I was wrong. Huh. They make webs, but they are odd, mismatched and assorted. And they aren't sticky. So instead of the little flies getting stick-stuck, it gets stuck in the craziness of the design. Now aren't you glad you've stuck with ME this far? Obviously my mind(less) wanderings take after sir l.l. But wait, there's more! Daddy longlegs CAN bite humans. As much as I am tempted to end my lecture here, valour compels me to share what else I learned. Daddy longlegs' venom isn't poisonous to humans. Another urban myth. I wish I could create an urban myth. The origins of this myth stem from another little known fact that l.legs like to eat spiders, too. And it has been in the observing of the consumption of deadly venomous spiders that this myth was created. Daddy long legs are devious little critters in that they will go vibrate another spider's web to make them think that they are a caught bug and when the spider comes to eat them, they are then eaten! There you go. I would like to regale you with my feelings toward house spiders, but I suspect that would be just plain boring next to my daddy longlegs account. You are thus spared.

3 comments:

Michelle said...

I learned so much! Another benefit of blogging.... (-:

Murr Brewster said...

Spiders don't scare me. And I just saw my first tarantula in the wild. Turns out that when spiders put on their furry pants, they're completely adorable.

I do take exception to the spiders that I seem to roll over on in bed once a year or so. Because they take exception to me, and it lasts for weeks.

Tanya said...

You are my most fascinating cousin...