Spider-Ant
Spider-Ant
Does whatever a spider canExcept jump
Cause it would be sus
Among ants be like ‘Did Carl just casually jump 20 stories high like it was nothing??’
Can he jump from a branch?
No he can’t, he is an ant
Look out, he is a Spider-Ant!
Strange, she can’t fall from a branch either. Whenever she does, she always seems to catch herself with spider web…
whatever a spider c’ant
Ant-spider, surely?
It’s lucky for them ants can’t count. “…seven, eight legs?? Wait a minute!”
The skinwalkers are among us
imagine if a species of lemur evolved to broadly look like us, but still with lemur faces and stuff
that’s basically what’s happening for ants, terrifying
I don’t think ants see very well, so it’d prob be more like lemurs that look exactly like us, but smell like ozone and old grease.
Note to self - automotive mechanics may be lemurs, High voltage electricians certainly are
Bottom left is definitely a spider. I count 8 legs and can see the distinct segmentation of a spider body. Though, really, just dat fat ass gives it away.
… arent they all spiders?
(Besides the leggies & butts, eyes are also an ez clue.)
I think so, too. They all seem to have eight legs, more than two eyes, which don’t look like compound eyes, a cephalothorax/two body segments rather than three, a lack of antennae, etc. It would probably be easier to tell looking at them head-on so we could see their chelicerae.
Edit: turns out the pedipalps are more of a giveaway.
Man, I wish spiders didn’t creep me out so much. They’re very cool, but my ancient lizard brain isn’t having it.
Omg, at least it’s alive in your pic, ty <3.
And yes, we are hardwired for some memetics about spider-looking things, but being amazed by them, understanding them biologically, & perhaps a bit of co-living (about as close to befriending them without them being “a pet” & still independent - you know, just seeing & saying hi to Clara every day, watching the life of a begin with ups & downs) may adapt how the association network in your brainhole is used.
(Just guessing.)No problem!
That’s very accurate. I don’t mind handling tarantulas or furry jumping spiders, but shiny spiders of any kind creep me out. Bonus point for terror if there’s webbing involved. Hobo spiders are probably the worst. They’re so fast and aggressive. I still catch them and take them outside, but it still feels awful. The only exception to the mercy rule is the shower. Shower spiders go down the drain immediately.
Poor clean spiders.
But I get what you are saying, it makes some intuitive sense.
In my case I think I’ve (as a kid) narrowed down the technical memetic part mostly to the very centre-point where the 8 lines end, so basically my brain recognising the legs (starting from the end of the legs) & then seeing how they “end” up in one narrow place (so, relatively to spider leg size, if the sternum looking from the bottom or the end part of prosoma from the top is “too tightly together” or even too perfectly round/octagonal shaped).
(And spiders differ very much in that regard, even the same one in relation to how well fed it is :D.)Why? Idk, but doesn’t feel learned.
(It’s still there, but not the default/I have to think about it more actively.)That I remember (again, as a kid) I was only triggered (differently than described above) by one “too smooth” species, the poor, harmless, misjudged beneficial, cute (well, as all spiders) wasp spiders.
I didn’t harm them but it’s a sad memory for me bcs the smol town (or the whole valley?) I grew up in basically doesn’t have them anymore. Bcs we hate flowers/biodiversity, but love grass & pesticides I guess. I should be glad they were even still around for me to experience them.(No pics bcs you mentioned you only like unshaven butts & legs.)
I didn’t harm them but it’s a sad memory for me bcs the smol town (or the whole valley?) I grew up in basically doesn’t have them anymore. Bcs we hate flowers/biodiversity, but love grass & pesticides I guess.
Wasp spider actually primarily live in tall grass. Big, unmown fields of grass are a great place to look for them. But I guess pesticides don’t help.
Yes, you are correct, I was inaccurate in my description of events - they systematically cut grass & nothing looks wild anymore (but also less tall grass & there are less mixed meadows).
For me, it was the fireflies. I grew up in suburbs at the edge of a city, where the rural land started, just about as far as city water and sewer reached. It grew pretty quickly, and by the time I turned 18, I was about as close to the city center as I was to the outskirts. In that process, every summer, there were fewer and fewer of them until one year they were just gone. I was busy, so I didn’t think much of it at the time, but looking back, I regret not making an attempt to make a habitat for them in our garden.
That’s so sad.
It’s hard to argue how we aren’t an infestation. The reach & environmental effects of humans per individual is outstanding even without factoring the explosive growth (globally only a few 100k or a few millions for 4 billion years, then a billon in a single millennia, then 9 billon in just 200 years).
Solitary unconnected gardens can’t help, it would barely be possible to sustain us normally if we all were extremely and unambiguously (and with much more knowledge) aware of & actively dedicating our lives to diminish environmental impacts.
But also our overall lives would be better. Imagine forest cities with tall buildings (without critter loss, so maybe glass covered streets?), clean every, waste treatment & reuse, no “waste”, etc.
Kill it with
firewater
Get a pet jumping spider. They don’t eat much, don’t need a large enclosure, you can handle them, and their venom is not significant to humans (they don’t really bite anyway).
My partner has two of them on her desk, and catching them exploring or sunning themselves is a little happiness boost every time.
Here is one chilling out.
Thanks for the suggestion. I just might do that. They’re very cute.
Fair warning, they have the same problem as rats… They live just long enough for you to get really attached to them. Lifespans are about 1 year for males, and up to 3 for females.
But, if you like them, you can always get a tarantula, which can live much longer.
Hmm. I do think I’d make a good, unusually benevolent, eldrich god. On the other hand, I still miss my beta fish that died 5 years ago. No telling how I’d react to the rise and fall of a spider family line, dozens of generations in length.
Tarantulas are cool, but I’d worry about dropping it. I know they typically don’t bite, and that their bites aren’t dangerous. Still, I don’t know if I could relate to it positively after that. It’s not rational. I’ve gotten mild dog bites and cat scratches from pets playing too rough, and those are much more dangerous. Tarantulas still pas the cuteness test, but I think the spider bias affects them more than jumping spiders.
I don’t think I’ve ever been uncomfortable having a jumping spider on me unexpectedly. It’s fun to watch them hunt. Watching the retinas in their big eyes move to track things is fun. It makes them seem more like adorable cartoon characters.
I know they typically don’t bite, and that their bites aren’t dangerous.
Fair warning, they may not be “dangerous”, but from the tarantula breeders I’ve talked to, some can “pack a whallop” which to me means painful as all fuck.
ancient lizard brain
I’m with you 100% spiders-wise but wonder if it’s cultural rather than lizard-brained. If I had a kid whom I could convince
- spiders don’t scare me and should not scare you,
- spiders, humans, and dogs are all reasonable animals to have in our home,
then would this kid be down with spiders’ company?
i think it’s instinctive to go “OH FUCK” when something of sufficient size skitters about, but not instinctive to specifically hate spiders
and it doesn’t matter what the skittery thing is, if a mouse scurries across my floor i’m gonna get spooked too, and i think mice are cute!
I see mice outside and I’m like “awwwwwwwww”.
I hear about people seeing spiders inside and my pulse rate rises.
Nah, my mother loved spiders and we somehow regularly had fucking massive house spiders crawling around on the ceiling of the house when I was growing up. I swear she must have been bringing them into the house at one point or something, we definitely had a well above average amount of spiders for a good few years there.
There was only ever one at a time though, that I ever saw anyway, but they were those really big, hairy bastards that you can count the legs off from across the room and don’t look like they’re supposed to live in England.
Fast too, so fast, and eerily silent as they skittered, with too many angles protruding from their fat bodies. If you couldn’t see them so starkly outlined against the white ceiling, you’d never even know they were up there, and they’d cross the room in less time than it took you to walk there yourself.
My mum thought they were cool though and called them all Boris and she’d talk to them like they were bloody cats. Mad woman.
I am (thank fuck) not my mother and shit scared of most spiders*. My mothers’ behaviour did not impact my perfectly rational fear of potentially dangerous creatures crawling around my house. I know giant house spiders aren’t dangerous to humans, but plenty of other big spiders around the world are and I don’t think it’s wise to try desensitise human children to this, especially as more and more species now will be migrating due to climate change.
*Jumping spiders are cool, I like those ones. They’re surprusingly smart, and cute, and they’ve even evolved a vegetarian amongst them.
I know giant house spiders aren’t dangerous to humans, but plenty of other big spiders around the world are and I don’t think it’s wise to try desensitise human children to this
There is actually not a lot of them, really just a handful of species per continent (out of 53.000). It’s much easier to learn about the few medical significant spiders in your area and be cool to the rest of the spiderbros.
Be cool to all animals, killing them is not OK.
But also, common house spider spreads antibiotic-resistant bacteria to humans, study finds, so maybe don’t be so blasé about letting them live in your house?
Alright, I tracked down the original source (no links provided in the news article …) and it seems they do mean the noble false widow when they say “common house spider”. Which I guess is technically correct, because it’s a common spider to find in your home (in the UK, Ireland and California, that is).
Anyway, the actual article is quite interesting and above my paygrade as an amateur enthusiast. The first thing that stood out to me was that they said “In addition to their medically significant venom”, refering to Steatoda nobilis. That is not what is widley accepted amonst arachnologists.
So I forwarded it to a friend who is a proper, published arachnologist. He immedietly replied with “Oh, yeah, the Dunbar study”. It seems to be kind of a one-off study so far (there are very few properly documented bites to begin with). The professional called the study “valuable” but also said that he was “sceptical of the interpretation”.
I would add that bites from Steatoda (and Theridiidae in generall, which includes black widows) are very rare and quite easy to avoid. They are very stationay spiders and can stay their entire live in a single web (the females. Males will wander around during mating season, but even amongst the black widows, only the mature females are considered medically significant).
I’ll still happily have Steatoda spiders in my flat with no worries. I know them, they’re cool.
Uff … this article. Talking about a common house spider, showing a picture of a noble false widow but labeling it a black widow … I’m gonna disect that in a minute, wait for my next reply.
Yeah, I also think its cultural and not an instinct. We don’t have screens on the windows, so letting spiders roam freely means I don’t get flies, which are objectively worse to cohabitate with.
They are all spiders, but if it hadn’t said they were all spiders I could have still just looked at that guy with little scrutiny and went “wait a minute…” He looks the least ant-like.
Oh, yeah, true - but I don’t know what species of ants it’s mimicking. Perhaps that’s just how they look too & now we are body-shaming ants for looking too spidery (‘sup, you 6-legged no-neck with that thicc ass’) :D.
It seems like it’s Myrmarachne maxillosa, very snooty thing.
It’s prob mimicking a puppy or something.
Here is one desperately trying to toucha the butt of another:
As for who they are copypastaing:
It probably mimics the Common Spiny Ants of the genus Polyharchis.
Yeah, these ants indeed have a dump truck:
(And these
hornyspiny ants do come in way more spinier flavours, pretty metal.)It’s prob mimicking a puppy or something.
Why would you put that uncensored comment out here for us to see? Now I’m going to have nightmares as if directed by John Capenter about spiders that look exactly like puppies to humans until they attack.
They are most dangerous on Halloween, by the way:
Stay vigilant. Do not become a statisic.
Why would you put that uncensored comment out here for us to see? Now I’m going to have nightmares as if directed by John Capenter about spiders that look exactly like puppies to humans until they attack.
Ohhhh, that’s a really cool & outstanding thought!
(With a satisfying explanation for the biological size limits ofc. It can just be “magic”, idk, the idea is too nice to be cockblocked by a plot hole.)It would be even funnier if the arachnids lost some original traits in favour of mimicry & their new environments (like the jumping spoders in this post lost the jumping part for their ant masquerade).
Not the jumping, but like the way of life - they just figured dogs have it too good when bonded to nice humans so some jumping-dog spiders just decide they want to be pets and they cuddle & fetch their entire lives (sure the humans might find it suspect how many live snacks they have to feed their pupper, or how no smol animals seem to hang around the house, but that’s not that different to being owned by a cat).
Also nothing beats the feeling of a happy jumping-dog spider jump-hugging you when you get home with all its weight.
(There is also the funny looks the first time you take your dog to the vet. Or how it builds it own beds out of the nicest silky material you’ve ever seen. Or how you’ve seen it jump from the ground after a squirrel … that was on the very top of a very tall three.)
Also jumping-dog spiders - kings of puppy-eyes look!
The mammal head tilt still needs some (evolutionary) work tho:
- ‘Does it bite?’
- ‘Almost never, but it will cocoon people that it dislikes.’
I saw in a documental a snake which fools ants, but not to eat these, but to use these as bait for fooling lizards, which are the real prey for the snake.
- The snake buried itself in the sand, leaving only the tail point, imitating a tan of grass
- This attracts the ant
- This in turn attracts the lizard who wants to eat the ant
- End of the lizard
Evolution games
Jumping spiders are anywayvery smart for catching their prey, even without the need to disguise their aspect, analyzing the situation and adjust their strategy.
Evolution to spiders: We’ve decided to combine your head and thorax.
Some jumping spiders: Nah
Lmao, giraffe spiders!
I could be violet sky
Imagine trying to hide an entire pair of legs when you’re hanging out with ants
“ohoho no! these aren’t legs, they’re pedipalps! mmm, pedipalps to help me eat!”
What big pedipalps you have, great aunt!
Are ants so visual? I guess so, or there wouldn’t be enough advantage for these guys to develop. I thought they went purely by sensing pheromones.
Maybe it isn’t just fooling ants?
Don’t know the advantage to fooling everything else but they are convincing. Worked in a warehouse that had a bunch of the red ones one summer. Everybody thought there was an ant problem but they seemed off to me. Firstly, they were never in groups, you’d only find lone ones wandering. Secondly, they walked like ants but held their “antennae” strangely. Lastly, when knocking one off a box I discovered they have a tether thread.
Ants are rarely visual, but I’m also struggling to figure out which predator this is meant to dissuade.
The Wikipedia page on ant mimicry is full of fun facts, but the relevant bits:
Jumping spiders in the genus Myrmarachne are Batesian mimics
Batesian mimics lack strong defences of their own, and make use of their resemblance to a well-defended model, in this case ants, to avoid being attacked by their predators.
Studies on this genus have revealed that the major selection force is the avoidance of ants by predators such as spider wasps and other larger jumping spiders.
But also (not specific to Myrmarachne):
Ant mimics can be myrmecophilous, with the mimics and their ant models living commensally together. In the case of ants, the mimic is an inquiline in the ants’ nest. Such mimics may in addition be Batesian or aggressive (predator) mimics. To overcome ants’ powerful defences, mimics may imitate ants chemically with ant-like pheromones, visually, or by imitating an ant’s surface microstructure to defeat the ants’ tactile inspections.
Thats actually wild, they can smell like ants and are convincing enough to pass a physical ant patdown. Crazy.
squeezes your buttcheek yeah they’re human, carry on
Consider: the goal isn’t for predators to be fooled, but prey.
Lots of things consider ants totally harmless, like aphids that gets farmed and stuff. Perhaps it’s an adaptation to throw those things off.
Aphids are borderline mindless, their chief strategy is simply breeding more aphids. I’ve gleefully spectated ladybugs devouring dozens of aphids, and not a single one responded in any way. Tiny dead idiots.
You might be on the right track, but I’m still struggling.
Honestly was just the first example I could come up with, but the fact remains that a lot of things do consider ants to be harmless because they aren’t, like, hunting those things. Especially other small arthropods.
I’m sure there are some hunting ant species (like the 200 army ant species), but most of them aren’t.
fun fact: aphids are born pregnant (or at least they can be)
Moreover, they can give birth to live young. Live young that are, as you said, pregnant. Pregnant with live, pregnant young. They’re a veritable Russian nesting doll. My loathing for these parthenogenic little fucks cannot be overstated.
Ah, so these spiders look like ants to fool the aphids that ants farm. Similar to how something that looked a lot like a human might fool cows and sheep into following them away to be eaten.
I would guess it’s to fool their prey.
The crab of the insect world?
Arthropods, man. They have two ideals and everything goes toward them.
impossible arthropod beauty standards need to be stopped!
That gave me a good chortle. Thanks for making my dumb thought funnier 😊
So in addition to crabification, we also have antification. Evolution really just found an energy minima at eight legs, huh?
It’s more that the lobster plan (long body) is really quite good in many niches, but the crab plan (wide body, no exposed tail) works better in more productive ecosystems that have more predators. So anything lobster shaped coming up from the deep mud will have to reduce its tail or get sniped by a fish
so wait are we just walking terrestrial lobsters? and… gorillas are primate crabs maybe?
Carcinisation is a bit more of an adaption to environment (convergent evolution into same-ish shape for the by-chanceb best utility of it … ie a perfect body) vs niche mimicry which is in relation to another specific species (ie some else’s body).
Proper ants only have 6 legs, though. But yeah, these spiders-turned-to-ants would have 8 legs.
Well, and crabs technically have 10 legs, with their foremost pair typically equipped with pincers. 🙃
i’m sure there’s at least one ant-mimicking spider that has turned their front legs into extra quasi-pedipalps to blend in better, getting rid of limbs is super easy in evolution (that’s where antennae and the existing pedipalps come from, and spinnerets too i presume)
My ADHD brain counting all the legs on these mfers for the past five minutes…
I could be an ant.
Great info, even the funny they-don’t-jump part, def looks like they don’t have the jumping hydraulics >!(but I’m always sad to see dead spiders)!<.
