With hundreds of years of baseless myth to supply us, it’s no wonder as many as six percent of people are phobic of arachnids. The rumor that a popular body cream supposedly contains pheromones that attract wolf spiders is just the latest.
These animals are stunningly diverse, ingenious creatures with so many characteristics worth admiring. None of these traits, though, involve the ability to crawl into your mouth while you sleep, lay eggs inside your flesh and food, or creep into your house through the drains.
Much of what is commonly touted about the spindly eight-legged invertebrates is a misconception, according to Rod Crawford, a spider expert and curator of arachnology at The Burke Museum. “Everything you thought you knew about spiders is wrong,” says Crawford.
First, they aren’t insects. Spiders belong to a completely different class called “Arachnida.” Arachnids and insects differ as much as birds and fish do, Crawford says.
Despite their bad rep (mostly perpetuated by myth), spiders are phenomenal ecosystem engineers and they’re responsible for keeping hundreds of thousands of insects and agricultural pests in check. Studies show that, in some ecosystems, more than 40 percent of all insect biomass passes through spiders, making them the number one controllers of insect populations.
“Suppose some arachnophobic magician could wave a magic wand and make all spiders disappear,” says Crawford. “That would be the greatest ecological catastrophe that ever happened.”
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Giving them their due thanks starts with correcting the unflattering rumors that surround them.
Myth: Spiders are out to bite us
Most people will never be bitten by a spider in their lifetime.
That’s because spiders are not interested in interacting with humans. Out of the 50,000+ species roaming the planet, very few ever come in contact with us. They’re not bloodsucking—like mosquitoes, ticks, or bedbugs—so they don’t seek us out.
Although it’s common to wake up with small skin bumps and sores and blame a spider, there’s almost always no reason to believe a spider is responsible for the prick, says Dimitar Stefanov Dimitrov, a spider evolution expert at the University Museum of Bergen in Norway. Most spiders’ two little fangs used for biting would barely leave a mark big enough to spot. “Most of the bites people think are spider bites are not probably spider bites,” says Dimitrov.
Myth: We swallow some spiders in our sleep every year
Throughout the years, several online forums and publications have claimed we swallow as many as eight spiders in our sleep every single year. There is no verified study, photo, collected specimen, medical record, or proven observation of a spider either crawling or attempting to crawl into a person’s mouth, according to Crawford.
Spiders want nothing to do with our smelly, steamy, panting mouths cracked open for heavy breathing and snoring while we sleep. “A spider is not going to be attracted to that at all,” says Crawford. “The air current is going to disturb the little sensory hairs that are all over their body.”
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Myth: Spiders lay eggs in the tips of bananas and other fruits
Spiders can, occasionally, be found in banana processing warehouses and banana shipments, crawling out of the crates in which the fruit has traveled. This is because a pack of bananas, grapes, or other clustered fruits, can be a nice place to hide a sac of tiny eggs, nestled in between fruits and safely sheltered from weathering and predators.
If anything, these would be visible and outside the fruit, not inside it. No spider is making a hole inside the fruit and laying its eggs there, says Dimitrov. Spiders are also unlikely to poke a hole into a cactus and sneak a sac of eggs inside it—as another urban legend suggests—let alone cause it to swell, tremble, and then explode with thousands of spiders once the eggs hatch.
Although there are burrowing spiders—who burrow homes inside the dirt, for instance—they cannot pierce through something as tough as fruits or plants.
Myth: Spiders can lay eggs under your skin and other crevices of your body
The story goes like this: a woman returns from a holiday in a warm, exotic location and finds a bump on her cheek that’s pulsating and growing. Concerned, she visits a doctor, and when the specialist pries the welt open, hundreds of small spiders crawl out.
This never happened. It’s one of the most commonly believed urban legends, according to Crawford, and it was probably spurred from a German short story from the 1840s, where a boil on a woman’s cheek bursts open with spiders… because she’s made a pact with the Devil.
Most spiders wouldn’t have the means or interest to burrow into thick human flesh and lay their eggs there, says Crawford, and in the rare case a spider bites a human, it would inject venom with its tiny fangs, not lay eggs.
Myth: When it gets cold, spiders crawl into your house up drains and sewers
Some spiders have evolved to live outside and spiders have evolved to live inside. In most cases, these different species will never meet. Although they might wander in accidentally, outdoor spiders already living in cold climates have no interest in finding refuge in our cozy homes.
“About 95 percent of the spiders you see indoors were always indoors, that's where they hatched, that's where they grew up,” says Crawford. “They belong to a small number of species that have been living around human-made buildings for as long as human-made building buildings have existed.” That’s why finding a spider in your abode and trying to set it free into the wild is counterproductive.
That is also why spiders aren’t crawling up pipes and drains to move in with us. If you find a spider in your bathtub or near your sink, it’s probably a house spider trying to get a drink, says Crawford, since water sources inside the home are few and far between. The spider was already living in your house, and it was crawling towards the drain. Plus, most plumbing pipes have a sediment-trapping section constantly replete with water that most spiders wouldn’t be able to wade.
Next time you see a spider in your house, remember it’s closer to a roommate than an intruder. Not only that, but they’re likely a helpful presence in your home’s ecosystem.
