Overcoming Your Fear of Spiders

t's True! You Don’t Have To Live In Fear of Spiders Ever Again... The Fear of Spiders Is One of The Top Phobias People Suffer From In America Today


FUN FACTS ABOUT SPIDERS
A lot of people fear spiders because some of them are
poisonous. Other people fear the thought of being bitten.
Let’s explore spiders in general and give you some facts
about common spiders.
Though spiders have simple eyes, they usually are not
well developed. Instead, spiders use vibrations, which they
can sense on the surface of their web. The tiny bristles
distributed all over a spider's body surface, are actually
sensitive tactile receptors. These bristles are sensitive to a
variety of stimuli including touch, vibration, and airflow.
Spiders are arthropods, so their skeletal system of their
body is the outermost layer. The hard exoskeleton helps the
spider maintain moisture and not dry out. The bristles are
not hair, but actually part of their exoskeleton.
The word spider is from an Old English verb spinnan,
meaning "to spin." Web weavers use the tiny claws at the
base of each leg, in addition to their notched hairs, to walk
on their webs without sticking to them.
Spiders digest their food outside their body. After the
prey is captured, spiders release digestive enzymes from
their intestinal tract and cover the insect. These enzymes
break down the body, which allows the spider suck up the
liquid prey.
The feared tarantula isn’t poisonous. A tarantula’s bite
can be painful, but it isn’t any more dangerous than a bee
sting.
A Daddy-long-legs isn’t a spider, though it looks a lot
like one. It doesn’t have a waist between its front body part
and its abdomen. Its legs are longer and thinner than a
spider’s, and it carries its body hung low.
Under a spider’s abdomen, near the rear, are tiny stubs
called spinnerets. The spider uses its legs to pull liquid silk
made in its abdomen from the spinnerets. The silk hardens
as it stretches. Since silk is made out of protein, a spider
eats the used silk of an old web before spinning a new one.
Not all spiders spin webs, but many use silk in other
ways. Some protect their eggs in silken egg sacs. The Wolf
Spider carries her egg sac attached to her spinnerets. Many
tarantulas line their burrows with silk. Some trap-door
spiders make silken lids for their burrows.
On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the
upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and
a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.
Most spiders belong to the orb weaver spider family,
Family Aranidae. This is pronounced "A Rainy Day."
A strand from the web of a golden spider is as strong
as a steel wire of the same size.
In the 1960s, animal behavior researchers studied the
effects of various substances on spiders. When spiders were
fed flies that had been injected with caffeine, they spun very
"nervous" webs. When spiders ate flies injected with LSD,
they spun webs with wild, abstract patterns. Spiders that
were given sedatives fell asleep before completing their
webs.
There is a group of spiders that lives between the low
and high watermark along the ocean shores, and when they
sense the tide coming in, they retreat to a tiny coral cave or
crevice and weave a tight silken door across the entrance.
The water comes higher and higher, covering the spider's
little retreat but not flooding it. Hours later, when the tide
drops, the spider comes out of its watertight hideaway and
goes about its business.
Another spider, called the water-spider, spends most of
its life underwater even though it needs to breathe air. Even
when newly hatched, it can surround its body with a film of
air and can dive and swim for long periods of time.
As an adult, this spider actually lives underwater in
what looks like a homemade diving bell. The spider makes
this shelter by fastening together several submerged stems
of aquatic plants with silk bindings, and then makes a silk
sheet that is fastened horizontally between the stems.
The spider comes to the surface, traps a bubble of air,
dives down with the bubble, and releases it under the little
canopy. Before long, the silk sheet looks like a deep
umbrella top, filled with air. Here, the spider lives its life,
resting, eating and reproducing. Whenever the spider needs
more air, it simply goes to the surface to fetch another
bubble.
Horseshoe crabs and spiders are actually close
relatives. The horseshoe crab belongs to the large group of
invertebrates (animals without backbones) called
Arthropods. This group also includes lobsters, crabs, insects,
spiders, and scorpions. Even...