If you’re one of those smug Californians who’s always going on about fish tacos and great weather and avocados and relaxed marijuana regulations, there’s a grumpy Northeasterner getting ready to have a schadenfreude party at your expense this weekend. That’s because this weekend in California is Tarantula Bang Fest…
We've known for a while now that lady spiders are the animal kingdom's OG misandrists. Lady spiders hit it and quit it like it's their job (which it is, I guess—it's not like they mate, chew on bugs, and work 9-5 at the bail bonds office), and when they "quit it" they also preemptively quit it on behalf of every other…
New research has disabused Spider scientists (technical term, I assure you) at the Smithsonian of a long-standing misconception that males of the "highly sexually dimorphic and polygamous" wink, wink, nudge, nudge giant wood spider persuasion would sever their own genitals during copulation with a female spider to create …
Well, this is romantic. It has been discovered by researchers at the National University of Singapore that males of a certain breed of spider — specifically, the tropical orb-spider Nephilengys malabarensis — will often castrate themselves either fully or partially, leaving a piece of their reproductive anatomy inside…
Spiders are creepy! I mean, they are kind of neat, but mostly they cause people to scurry away in fear and sometimes even emit high-pitched shrieks. Well, if you are one of the people who can't stand those little multi-legged crawlers, you might be in luck. A new study has found that it is possible to turn people from…
Because they feed on it! Just kidding — actually, fear just makes spiders look bigger, as scientists determined when they had a bunch of volunteers hang out with tarantulas and then guess their size. People who were afraid of spiders estimated them as bigger than did those who were just fine with the eight-legged guys. …
The makers of Fear of Spiders Phobia Treatment claim the new app will eradicate your spider phobia, using "NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), visualization, and mind mapping methods." Essentially, the app lets you choose scary photos of spiders, then stare at them until you aren't afraid anymore. At $2.99, the app is…
Presenting females with a pre-coital gift is an essential part of the nursery web spider's mating ritual, but researchers have discovered that some male spiders are giving their ladyfriends elaborately wrapped bits of junk, such as flower, cotton, or ant husks wrapped in silk. While the women are distracted by what's…
You know how when a spider gets on you, you're like, "Ahh! Guck! Uck! Spider!" and you kind of swipe at it until it gets off your skin and you can resume your normal existence of eating, reading the Internet, and wondering when a spider will next get on you? Well, that's how I imagine spiders react to mites. Unless of…
What happens when a local Indiana news show segues from a segment with spiders to the weather report? In this case, a particularly arachnophobic weatherman very much loses your cool and attempts to give the weather report from the back of the studio, by an exit. When the bullyish male news anchor decides to wear the …
You'd think if you were a scary black widow spider who devours her mates after absorbing their precious seed, you could at least get some goddamn respect from scientists. According to a new study, you'd be wrong.
Since yesterday's gross stories
[Skun, Cambodia; June 29. Image via AP]
• After pleading guilty to rape, Torkieh Sadagheh freaked out in court, screaming that the judge was "worse than Hitler" and "In America, sex is legal!" He got 15 years for the rape and a $1,000 fine. •
This amazing piece of cloth was woven from the silk of the golden orb spider and cost more than half a million dollars to create. It is the first brocade composed entirely of spider-thread. [NYT]
A new study suggests that females are genetically disposed to fear spiders and other dangerous critters — but not born that way. Baby girls can rapidly learn to fear creepy-crawlies. Or read messages in webs. [New Scientist]
