Spiders are among the five most feared animals and between animal phobias, arachnophobia is one of the most prevalent. When poisonous animals and painful bite, this mortally afraid of them could be explained as an evolutionary adaptation to avoid instinctively. However, bees and wasps also bite and have venom and animosity so far awakened as spiders. On the other hand, and no complications due to allergies, virtually all species of spiders that live in temperate latitudes are relatively harmless to humans.
Another reason could be psychological: the unannounced appearance in relatively close (who has not ever been scared when he saw a spider in a corner of the roof or have been given a web face without realizing it? ) attached to the grotesque shape of your body (four long pairs of legs that leave a body out of proportion in which the abdomen is several times bulky than the cephalothorax in spiders weaving or "fat, hairy spiders' represented by the tarantulas and other mygalomorphs) and the unpredictability of their movements create fear and anxiety.
The form of fear. Left: The Hunch spider (Nephila clavata ), a weaver spider I photographed in Kyoto. Right: The Brazilian salmon pink tarantula ( Lasiodora parahybana) has everything to trigger panic: it's big, fat and hairy. Bradsview Stock.
Just as Jorōgumo Tsuchigumo and in Japanese mythology, the giant spider monster (and usually hungry for human flesh) is to be recurrent in literature and film (eg Aragog in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Shelob in The Two Towers ) . The giant spider is like a distorted manifestation of the fear that these spiders have to be relatively close poisonous animals and humans. The presence of spiders in mythology and culture makes arachnophobia is primarily a learned behavior. In fact, his fear arachnophobes attributed the information they get and have distorted thoughts about spiders, considered aggressive and belligerent, as if only they were to go against them but there are other people accompanying them.
A team of researchers from the University of Würzburg (Germany) studied which of these two possible reasons, the evolutionary (poison) and psychological (fear and repulsion) weighs more arachnophobia. To this end, 76 students presented photographs of arthropods (spiders, beetles, bees / wasps and butterflies / moths) that had to evaluate as fear, disgust evoked or risk involved. The result is that the spiders were the highest score in all categories, with the feeling of disgust and fear prevailing on the hazard; which led them to say that the fear of spiders can not be explained solely by its potential danger, leaving the future a study on the perception people have of spiders in different cultures and arachnids traits and behaviors that cause the sensation of fear and loathing. Personally, I find lacking in the study who were shown pictures of centipedes (centipedes, especially), other terrestrial arthropods spiders share a painful and venomous sting, a disturbing way and surprise appearance at relatively close.
Results of the study. Rating feelings of fear, disgust and danger from spiders, beetles, bees / wasps and butterflies / moths from 0 (none) and 9 (end).
Perhaps the image of a giant spider was present in the subconscious of the paleontologists who in 1980 published a description of some Upper Carboniferous fossils (makes 318 to 299,000,000 years ago) found in Argentina and interpreted as a spider He baptized with the name of Megarachne servinei . From her description, it was a kind of mygalomorphs (tarantula) whose body measured nearly 34 inches long and could have reached the feet with legs extended. However, fossil fuller revealed that it was a giant spider, but a sea scorpion (eurypterids).
The giant spider impostor. Fossil Megarachne servinei (left) that led to its interpretation as a spider (center), but finally it has been considered as a eurypterids (right). References
Spiders are special: fear and disgust evoked by pictures of arthropods . Antje BM Gerdes, Gabriele Uhl, Georg W. Alpers. 2009. Evol. Hum. Behav. 30 (1), pp. 66-73.
From mother scorpion spider demon: Arachnids in mythology . Antonio Melic. 2002. AracNet 10 - Journal of Arachnology Ibérica (Bulletin) 5, pp. 112-124.
The true identity of the supposed giant fossil spider Megarachne . Paul A. Selden, Joseph A. Corronca and Mario A. Hunicken. 2005. Biol Lett. 1, pp. 44-48.
Lost: nods to science in "lost" Care in the kitchen!