Arachnids

This Transparent Jumping Spider is the Stuff of Nightmares

There are more than 5000 species of jumping spider. This one, spotted in an Ecuadorian reserve by zoologist Wayne Maddison is both fascinating and terrifying. One thing that unites all jumping spiders is their four pairs of eyes, with one larger pair set a bit farther back from the others. What’s delightfully creepy about this…

Biology Jason G. Goldman Apr 29

Was The Pringles Man Inspired By This Spider?

The kidney garden spider, or pale orb weaver (Araneus mitificus), would be a fascinating critter on its own, but the fact that it looks just like the Pringles man makes it even more awesome. These spiders have a really neat trick when it comes to their web-weaving. They leave a whole chunk of their web…

Biology Jason G. Goldman Apr 1

Holy Crap, This Molting Tarantula Video Is Completely Bonkers

Seriously, even if spiders give you the heebie-jeebies, you need to watch this. With a little bit of audio editing, a tarantula shedding its exoskeleton becomes cute—even if it’s still a bit creepy. I don’t know what inspired Vimeo user Bipolar Spider to add wacky audio to their molting Chilean Rose while playing with the…

io9 Lauren Davis Mar 20

Watch this spider use its web as a bug-trapping slingshot

That’s right, this Amazonian arachnid can fling its web at your face. But it prefers to take aim at tasty bugs rather than wait for them to walk onto its web. Georgia Institute of Technology graduate student Troy Alexander spotted this daredevil spider at the Tambopata Research Center jungle lodge in Peru, and Jeff Cremer…

io9 Lauren Davis Jan 15

How to give yourself arachnophobia in just six seconds

How, you ask? By watching this absolutely terrifying Vine video of a giant ball of spiders basically exploding. To be fair, these guys aren’t actually spiders; they’re Opiliones, another order of arachnids who are often confused with regular spiders. So if this video has sacre you shitless, you still technically have arachnophobia now. You’re welcome!…

io9 Rob Bricken Jan 1

Male Spiders “Shudder” to Calm Their Cannibalistic Brides

For some male spiders, sex can come with a very high price: Death. How, then, do they get it on without becoming their cannibalistic mate’s snack? Scientists have found that male orb-web spiders save their skin by performing a smooth move called the “shudder,” which has the amazing ability to reduce female aggression. Numerous animals…

io9 Joseph Bennington-Castro Dec 19

870,000 Toyotas Recalled Due to “Spider-Related Problem”

Did we stutter? Almost one million Toyotas. Recalled. Because spiders. Top photo via (though I think that may actually be a Nissan in the picture…) Via CNN: Sometimes, their webs can create a blockage in a drainage tube coming from the air conditioning condenser. That can cause water to drip down onto an airbag control…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Oct 21

No, that spider didn’t bite you. Probably.

Hey, remember that time you thought a spider bit you? Well, it probably didn’t. According to arachnologists, that “bite” you got was more likely from one of the many other creepy-crawlies out there. It could even be an infection (unrelated to spiders). I like spiders. If I see one in my house, I don’t kill…

io9 Joseph Bennington-Castro Jul 5

This Is Why Spider Monogamy Is Terrifying

In certain species of spiders and insects, females kill and eat their mates after sex. But the dark fishing spider experiences a very odd twist on this gruesome tale. Rather than being killed by his mate, a male of this species (Dolomedes tenebrosus) spontaneously dies after sex — while still hanging from the bulbous body…

io9 Joseph Bennington-Castro Jun 19

Should you really start eating insects?

Earlier this month, the UN released a paper touting the nutritional and environmental benefits of insects. The paper caused quite a stir in the media, with a mix of fascination, head-nodding, and not a little revulsion. But why is the UN advocating entomophagy? Why aren’t we eating bugs already? And should you really dip your…

io9 Lauren Davis May 26

Bat-eating spiders are everywhere (except Antarctica)

Today in nightmare fuel: scientists now believe bat-eating spiders to be more widely distributed around the globe than previously realized. According to newly published research, bat-predation by spiders has been observed on every continent on Earth — Antarctica being the sole exception. As if this video evidence that spiders can eat 18-inch-long snakes weren’t harrowing…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Mar 18

Entomologist creates one-of-kind paintings using live bugs as his paintbrush

Entomologist Steven Kutcher has worked as a wrangler of creepy crawlies on movies like Arachnophobia, Jurassic Park, and James and the Giant Peach. But his artist interest in insects and arachnids go beyond the silver screen. He also dips their bodies in paint and places them on a canvas, letting his tiny artists create unusual…

io9 Lauren Davis Mar 3

Meet a daddy longlegs with a 13-inch legspan

Daddy longlegs don’t pose a threat to humans, but the following species from Laos may unnerve those readers with hair-trigger squeamishness. This arachnid — which is known as a harvestman — boasts a 33-centimeter legspan and was discovered in the Laotian province of Khammouan by Dr. Peter Jäger of Frankfurt’s Senckenberg Research Institute. It’s only…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Oct 16

Incredible fossil discovery reveals a brain that’s over half a billion years old

Researchers have announced what might be the oldest example of a brain ever discovered. For 520 million years, the remains of ancient arthropods known as Fuxianhuia have been hiding in the hills of Southern China, interred between layers of ancient mudstone. The body of this long-extinct creature is regarded by researchers as “extremely simple,” but…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Oct 10

Hooray, an optical illusion of a building filled with giant spiders

For hilarious and sadistic kicks, German designer Friedrich van Schoor created this projection mapping installation of an entire building story occupied by two automobile-sized spiders. Oh, to be a fly on the wall confused passerby when these eight-legged monsters began scampering. You can watch how van Schoor created this piece in the above video. Incidentally,…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Sep 27

Rosacea could be caused by mites unleashing feces inside your pores

Holy crap. File this away under things you desperately wish you could un-know: lurking in your pores right now are tiny bugs, closely related to spiders, that live off your facial oils. Usually, these bugs are harmless, but harbor too many of them and their tendency to die and decompose while they’re inside you becomes…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Aug 30

Spider lives in woman’s ear for five days, everyone on the planet winces in unison

The notion of spiders clambering into our orifices while we sleep may sound like the purview of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, but for a one “Ms. Lee” who visited China’s Changsha Central Hospital yesterday, it was a shudder-worthy reality. https://gizmodo.com/publishers-destroy-scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-darks-a-5881462 Straight from the Hunan province, a photograph of an arachnid curled up…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Aug 9

Nightmare fuel: Watch a spider use a portable net to capture its prey

Most of us think of spider webs as passive hunting tools: a spider spins a web, prey is caught in the web, the spider returns to collect its spoils. But for arachnids from the family Deinopidae, webs are used in a decidedly active (and decidedly terrifying) form of predation. Commonly known as “gladiator” or “net-casting”…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Aug 7

Apparently some spiders hunt in packs. You’ve been warned.

Arachnophobes can usually take comfort in the fact that spiders are solitary creatures. The vast majority of the almost 40,000 known arachnid species have pretty miserable social skills, so they tend keep mostly to themselves. But there exists a small handful of around two dozen species — known collectively as “social spiders” — that get…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez May 11

Watch an army of baby spiders explode from their slain mama

It’s the alternate, terrible ending to Charlotte’s Web, in which Charlotte’s babies, instead of flying off on the breeze, burst forth in the midst of a human-spider battle in a spectacular explosion of scuttling little legs. Warning: may cause spontaneous arachnophobia. Apparently, this particular spider carries its egg sacs on its body, which is why…

io9 Lauren Davis Jan 21

This Transparent Jumping Spider is the Stuff of Nightmares

Was The Pringles Man Inspired By This Spider?

Holy Crap, This Molting Tarantula Video Is Completely Bonkers

Watch this spider use its web as a bug-trapping slingshot

How to give yourself arachnophobia in just six seconds

Male Spiders “Shudder” to Calm Their Cannibalistic Brides

870,000 Toyotas Recalled Due to “Spider-Related Problem”

No, that spider didn’t bite you. Probably.

This Is Why Spider Monogamy Is Terrifying

Should you really start eating insects?

Bat-eating spiders are everywhere (except Antarctica)

Entomologist creates one-of-kind paintings using live bugs as his paintbrush

Meet a daddy longlegs with a 13-inch legspan

Incredible fossil discovery reveals a brain that’s over half a billion years old

Hooray, an optical illusion of a building filled with giant spiders

Rosacea could be caused by mites unleashing feces inside your pores

Spider lives in woman’s ear for five days, everyone on the planet winces in unison

Nightmare fuel: Watch a spider use a portable net to capture its prey

Apparently some spiders hunt in packs. You’ve been warned.

Watch an army of baby spiders explode from their slain mama

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