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Myth Busted: People Swallow 8 spiders a year while they sleep
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:38 pm
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:38 pm
quote:
Rod Crawford has heard plenty of firsthand accounts of spider-swilling slumberers. “Once or twice a year, someone tells me they once recovered a spider leg in their mouth,” says Crawford, the arachnid curator at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle.
Luckily for all of us, the “fact” that people swallow eight spiders in their sleep yearly isn’t true. Not even close. The myth flies in the face of both spider and human biology, which makes it highly unlikely that a spider would ever end up in your mouth.
Three or four spider species live in most North American homes, and they all tend to be found either tending their webs or hunting in nonhuman-infested areas. During their forays, they usually don’t intentionally crawl into a bed because it offers no prey (unless it has bed bugs, in which case that person has bigger problems). Spiders also have no interest in humans. “Spiders regard us much like they’d regard a big rock,” says Bill Shear, a biology professor at Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia and former president of the American Arachnological Society. “We’re so large that we’re really just part of the landscape,”
More than anything, spiders probably find sleeping humans terrifying. A slumbering person breathes, has a beating heart and perhaps snores—all of which create vibrations that warn spiders of danger. “Vibrations are a big slice of spiders’ sensory universe,” Crawford explains, “A sleeping person is not something a spider would willingly approach.”
From the standpoint of human biology, the oral spider myth also seems ridiculous. If someone is sleeping with her mouth open, she’s probably snoring—and thus scaring off any eight-legged transgressors. Plus, many people would likely be awakened by the sensation of a spider crawling over their faces and into their mouths. Shear can attest: once, while camping, he awoke to find a daddy longlegs crawling on his face.
Spider experts concede that a sleeping person could plausibly swallow a spider, but “it would be a strictly random event.” People who claim they’ve swallowed spiders never seem to have any concrete evidence. “People tell me this happened to them, but they threw it (the evidence) away—flushed it down the toilet, usually,” Crawford says. There’s also a sore lack of eyewitnesses for such a frequent event as eight spiders a year. So even if you heard or read this spider statistic from a trustworthy source (such as a Snapple cap), you can rest assured that it doesn’t have a leg, or eight legs, to stand on.
Rest easy, OT LINK
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:40 pm to Jim Rockford
Wait, people actually believe this?
I thought it was common knowledge this was a false statistic
The only insect people probably swallow while sleeping are carpet beetle larvae
I thought it was common knowledge this was a false statistic
The only insect people probably swallow while sleeping are carpet beetle larvae
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:44 pm to Jim Rockford
quote:
Shear can attest: once, while camping, he awoke to find a daddy longlegs crawling on his face.
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:47 pm to Jim Rockford
Maybe not in the house .. But always let the water hose run for a minute before you drink out of it. MY Cousin got a big wolf spider in his mouth one time when we were kids..
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:49 pm to GATORGAR247
quote:
But always let the water hose run for a minute before you drink out of it
Where are you from? In South Louisiana it is a must to let the water hose run for a minute because the water in the hose is so hot it will melt your face.
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:51 pm to saturday
quote:
In South Louisiana it is a must to let the water hose run for a minute because the water in the hose is so hot it will melt your face.
I can verify this is the same in North Louisiana. Rookie move drinking first water from a hose.
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:51 pm to Jim Rockford
Those are amateur numbers. Utterly mediocre.
Built a robot with proximity motion detection which wakes up my dog, who I have trained to catch the evil bastards and feed them to me as I sleep. I eat as many of those frickers in my sleep per week as most eat in their lifetime.
Built a robot with proximity motion detection which wakes up my dog, who I have trained to catch the evil bastards and feed them to me as I sleep. I eat as many of those frickers in my sleep per week as most eat in their lifetime.
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:51 pm to Jim Rockford
The people that believe this don’t deserve to know it’s false
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:52 pm to GATORGAR247
quote:Taste good?
MY Cousin got a big wolf spider in his mouth one time when we were kids..
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:52 pm to saturday
We didn't just drink out the hose in the summer. That was a year round thing in Texas..
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:53 pm to Jim Rockford
Every 7 years I swallow gum so that while it's stuck in my digestive track it will capture and contain the spider corpses.
Posted on 8/3/20 at 2:54 pm to Jim Rockford
The mouth breathers on this site swallow twice that
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