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Non-Australians who click on linked article on huntsmans[1] should note these are regular visitors in our homes. But as much as I love scaring foreigners with o
by hartror 13y ago
Non-Australians who click on linked article on huntsmans[1] should note these are regular visitors in our homes. But as much as I love scaring foreigners with our wild life (google dropbear) the ones you see day to day in urban environments are generally 10cm across and happily cohabit with humans.
[1] http://largestfastestsmartest.co.uk/largest-spiders-in-australia-huntsman-spider/ http://largestfastestsmartest.co.uk/largest-spiders-in-austr...
- thoughtcriminal 13y agoIts a shame Hollywood has vilified certain animals and insects like sharks, snakes, spiders and bats. Now we are unreasonably fearful of them.
- onli 13y agoI doubt that. Hollywood probably used them as villains because people were already scared of them. The fear of spiders, ... is believed to be a primal fear, an evolutionary safeguard, because some of them are indeed dangerous (and especially there were mankind is believed to have started). Don't know how much of that is proven. And I wasn't aware of a typical fear of bats (maybe I watched to much batman).
- jimworm 13y agoA review with references to the ease of fear learning in primates. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/cd/12_1/ohman.cfm http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/cd/12_1/ohman.c...
- rm999 13y ago> The fear of spiders, ... is believed to be a primal fear, an evolutionary safeguard [Citation Needed] I've heard that too, but all the evidence I've seen indicates arachnophobia is a largely cultural European phenomenon. For example, see this: http://animalsplatform.org/assets/library/274_s214.pdf http://animalsplatform.org/assets/library/274_s214.pdf Also note that in parts of Asia and South America people actually eat spiders.
- PeterWhittaker 13y agohttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000579679800059X http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796798...
- rm999 13y agoYou can't just link to a paper (behind a pay-wall, of all things) and expect me to find the relevant part! Explain why it's relevant. I just spent 20 minutes reading that paper ಠ_ಠ and I see no evidence to support the argument. The paper I linked to by the same author explicitly contradicts it: >The tendency of Europeans and their descendants to be fearful of spiders does not seem to be shared by people in many non-European cultures, and this is not consistent with those evolutionary accounts of spider fear which suggest that spider fear should be a common feature of the human gene pool regardless of culture (e.g. Seligman, 1971). However, it is consistent with the present thesis which argues that spider fear developed as a result of the association between spiders and disease in Europe after the tenth century
- ceejayoz 13y agoSay [Detailed Sourced Explanation Needed] rather than [Citation Needed], then.
- rm999 13y agoIt's not a real citation if it doesn't support the point. Linking to a paper and hoping people believe it supports you because it's a paper is poor form. I expect people to be able to analyze their citations - that's pretty standard practice.
- saraid216 13y agohttp://arno.unimaas.nl/show.cgi?fid=2382 http://arno.unimaas.nl/show.cgi?fid=2382 I googled for the paper title and this was the second result. It's just a scan, but it's readable.
- jameswyse 13y agoYeah the huntsmans are very welcome in my home, they can eat all the cockroaches and mozzies they like! Geckos too, because they're cute :)
- zng 13y agoMy main concern is my extreme paranoia for having 'something like that' walk on me/in the bed while sleeping, Uhh...Brrr!
- protomyth 13y agoHaving lived in black widow country as a youth, I have the same freak-out-at-crawly-while-sleeping syndrome. side note: do not watch the video in the article if spiders freak you out
- Nursie 13y agoScary as hell when you're taking a shower and happen to look up and oh, hey, look, there's a fully grown grey huntsman up there! OK just don't you move, I'll finish up my shower and get out of here ASAP...
- jfb 13y agoHow do you people survive to adulthood?
- enraged_camel 13y agoAs a non-Australian, big spiders don't bother me. Cockroaches on the other hand...
- jfb 13y agoWell, I was thinking more of, say, the estaurine crocodile, white shark, box jellyfish, taipan, funnel-web spider, red back spider, blue-ringed octopus, stone fish, brown snake, banded sea krait, &c. &c. &c.
- buo 13y agoI have to say, I'd rather have a 20-foot crocodile in my back yard, than a 1-foot spider.
- jfb 13y agoMe too.
- enraged_camel 13y agoYep. At least you can see the crocodile and can stay away from it. Roaches though? Those fuckers scurry all over the place and you don't see them until they start crawling on you...
- jfb 13y agoThen again, no cockroach has ever jumped out of the water and pulled someone under, to drown and then get all soft and rotted and delicious.
- bwooce 13y ago
- ultimoo 13y agoWow! That is very interesting. In the US there are pretty comprehensive "pest-control" measures taken in urban apartment complexes to ensure that there are absolutely no insects, spiders or geckos indoors. I probably see a really tiny "house spider" (which is probably a centimeter across in size) once or twice a year inside my apartment. So my question is it common to not have pest control in OZ or is your house the exception (since you are nature lover maybe)?
- Nursie 13y agoAs a scaredy-cat brit, when I moved to Australia the first thing I did was spray the outside of my house with spider repellent :)
- itcmcgrath 13y agoWhy not? Well for the huntsmen will eat the smaller and harder to control insects (like cockroaches, of which there are plenty). Think of them as natural pest control. We used to have one in our apartment, which we named Fred. RIP Fred!
- girvo 13y agoI've never bothered, neither did my parents. Currently we have three baby geckos hanging out with their parents out the front of the house, a couple of hunstmans, and moths floating around from time to time. I think nature is awesome :) /from brisbane
- jfb 13y agoThe thing about geckos and (as much as it pains me to admit it) spiders is that they prey on much more noxious and difficult to control vermin, particularly the mosquito. This is pretty useful when spiders are basically harmless and Anopheles the most dangerous animal in the world.
- hartror 13y agoIn the tropics we had some pest control for cockroaches but down south we don't really bother.
- stephencanon 13y agoAustralia: even the mammals are venomous[1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_venom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_venom