Silly spider strangeness

/

Two stories came across my radar recently, both of which highlight how spiders get involved in strange news stories.

In the first story, we are presented with "evidence" of some kind of giant spider spotted via Google Earth.

Incontrovertible proof!

Incontrovertible proof!

The image seems pretty straightforward to me: find a satellite image of a remote island and slap a blurry spider image on there. The story about this image surfaced on a UFO blog, including this statement: "...goes to prove that scientists don’t have the slightest clue about the hidden giant species that exist in the oceans of the world."

While it is true that the ocean is poorly explored and even large species can escape our notice...spiders? Really? Spiders? Spiders.

Spiders do not live in the ocean, do not grow to the size of a bus, and would likely have been noticed by now if such spiders existed. If they are coming ashore, then they should be more visible than deep sea giants. Also, they'd have to eat a lot, as spiders are voracious predators. Spiders, as fluid feeders, cannot feed while submerged, though I suppose these giant marine spiders could find a way to make it work. Pushing the obviously ridiculous claim over the edge, the person who shared this image did not include coordinates, thus preventing independent confirmation of the image.

The other weird, though less crazy, thing that happened with spiders in the news goes in an unexpected direction. At a grocery store in Sweden, a large spider (tarantula of some sort) was found in with some apples. Now, as I've described before, large spiders do occasionally show up with bananas, but apples are an unusual crop, especially for coincidental tarantulas.

The real twist here, the one that puts this story in a different category than any spider-in-produce news piece I've ever seen, is that a person was seen putting the tarantula on the apples. So, how do we make sense of this behavior? Was the spider being dropped off, perhaps with the hope it would find its own way in the world? Why apples? Does the Swedish education system create some kind of link between tarantulas and apples? Or maybe this is simply the face of modern Swedish terrorism?

Maybe the owner intended to come back later and pick the spider up, using the apples as some kind of tarantula day care. I'm going to assume this is what was going on, and encourage grocery stores to have a more explicit location for spider drop-off and pick-up. Putting them next to the apples might be ideal, because then the spiders could at least gaze at the sweet, crispy bounty. Please write to your local grocery store and demand a safe, clearly marked place for people (Swedish or otherwise) to deposit their large arachnid pets!

Grappling with grapes

/

Continuing the theme from my last post about spider news, we have a “news” story about a woman who found a spider in some grapes. The article has a decent mix of level-headed fact reporting and questionable phrasing/behavior. Apparently, finding a spider in a bunch of grapes was the woman's worst nightmare, which is a sign to me that she must live a very comfortable life. My worst nightmare would be something more along the lines of realizing that ghosts are real and that they can force us to watch their terrible television programming in our minds as we go about our daily routines. Either that or having to wander the torture chamber known as Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Yugh.

Anyway, the woman was at least aware of the fact that produce will occasionally come with a bonus toy (or demonic terror, depending on your point of view), so she didn't fly into full panic mode. Unfortunately, the spider was killed. Since the grapes were likely transported from elsewhere in the country (or planet), it might actually be preferable to not let the spider go in the wild. Aside from making for some interesting population genetics, there could be potential for spreading parasites, bacteria, or viruses along with the spider. I advocate for keeping spiders as pets until natural aging takes the spider away to that big web in the sky. They are pretty easy to care for and are fascinating to watch.

As people with the financial means continue to increase the demand for organic produce, there should be an expectation for a higher incidence of finding spiders or other critters in fresh food. This is only a problem if we are incapable or unwilling to check produce ourselves and remove the offending arthropod. Grocery stores wash and assess their goods, but they can't catch everything. So, should you find an eight-legged prize in your next bunch of grapes, celebrate. Organic practices encourage control of pests by predators, which is better for the environment than widespread pesticide application. Plus, the spider does not want to be in your house and certainly means you no harm.

Going bananas over spiders

/

In a recent article, we learn of a woman afraid that thousands of spiders have infested her home by hatching from an eggsac stuck to a banana. What's more, it's assumed these are the most deadly spiders in the world: Brazilian wandering spiders! She had her entire home fumigated, treated with a "UV fogging agent", and insect monitoring stations installed.

I ran out of eyebrows to raise while reading this story. Here's some things to consider:

  1. The Brazilian wandering spider (Phoneutria spp.) rarely makes it into banana shipments. Data from the U.S. show that, from 1926-2014, only 6 of these spiders have been found in international cargo. It is unlikely, to say the least, that someone will discover another one.
  2.  The majority (94%) of bananas consumed (in the U.S., at least) are from Ecuador, as well as Colombia and Central America. Brazil produces bananas, but consumes most of them domestically.
  3. While the venom from a Brazilian wandering spider is indeed medically relevant, the venom from the pantropical huntsman spider (Heteropoda venatoria) is not. The pantropical huntsman spider is the most common large, startling spider to be shipped with produce, along with members of the comparably harmless genus Cupiennius.
  4. Spider identification is a notoriously tricky business, and even world experts can spend hours laboring over taxonomic keys before arriving with confidence at an ID. Large, unique spiders are certainly easier to identify, but not from their eggsacs! The pictures accompanying these kinds of stories always show a small, nondescript eggsac. You cannot count on pest control specialists to identify a spider by its eggsac, especially when expert arachnologists could only laugh if you asked them to do so.
  5. It may be a small comfort, but Phoneutria spp. eggsacs contain hundreds, not thousands of eggs.
  6. Even if the eggsac did belong to a Brazilian wandering spider and the spiderlings survived long enough to hatch, they would not be a threat to anyone. I'll save my position on spider bites for later, but just trust me for now.
  7. People can spend their money however they see fit, but the measures taken here seem rather extreme. The "nuke it from orbit" approach to pest control is certainly more costly and hazardous to the homeowner's health than a more reasonable "catch/squash every one you see" tactic. I'd keep them as pets, but hey, that's me.