Mythbusting, arthropod style

I get questions in my inbox sometimes, being the "spider girl" and all. Besides "WHAT IS THIS?!" with an attached photo, urban legends are probably the most common. Other times, I get asked in person or it comes up in conversation. I'm like a magnet for ridiculous arthropod claims.

Maybe this will help. In no particular order, here are a few answers.
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The female black widow spider does not always eat her mate.

The praying mantis can, in fact, copulate without decapitating her mate. (However, she does seem to quite enjoy the practice. My husband is SO not allowed to balk at my mood-setting preferences anymore.)

No, that's not a spider bite. It looks like you scratched the top off a mosquito or ant bite, and it got scabby and infected. Quit doing that, and you'll be fine. Here, my son uses these Transformers Band-Aids when he has trouble remembering.

Falling asleep with candy in your mouth isn't too bright, but it certainly won't make ants burrow into your brain through your ears. You don't have to worry about earwigs either. I think you're thinking of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

The daddy long-legs does not "have the most potent venom to humans, but its mouth is too small to bite humans." They're not venomous. Still, how would we test this, exactly? Extract the venom and kill a bunch of people on purpose?

Camel spiders (solpugids) are not two feet across. They do not "run screaming like a baby," nor do they eat camels from the inside out. They are not venomous. Also, I'm pretty sure they are the least of our soldiers' worries overseas.

No, that's not a spider bite. It looks like you pinched yourself in the car door.

No spider ever laid eggs in someone's skin, mouth, or beehive hairdo. Spiders are not waiting in airplane toilet seats to bite your butt.

Millipedes do not have a thousand legs. If it's roundish and has two pairs of legs per segment, it's a millipede.

For the love of god, it's venomous. Poisonous is when it's ingested or inhaled. Venom is injected into your bloodstream or deeper tissues. Most venom isn't even poisonous. And I am picturing you eating spiders when you say they're poisonous.

No, I don't think that's a spider bite either. Did you see what bit you? No? It probably wasn't a spider. And it definitely wasn't a black widow if it was daytime, you were in an open field, didn't reach beneath anything, and didn't see a web. And (for locals) it definitely definitely wasn't a brown recluse. We don't even have those here.

I don't know how many spiders the average person swallows in a year or a lifetime, and neither do you. That "statistic" was invented to see how far a bunch of gullible idiots would spread an idiotic claim with no evidence whatsoever.

Killing praying mantises isn't a crime, but you'd better not. I'll be sad and my son will lecture you forever if we ever catch you.

No, that's probably not a spider bite either.

Any questions?

OK, so I suck at blog features. At least, that one. The thing is, I suck at thinking of recurring things from which to draw for blog posts.

But here's a better one. This well will never run dry. Questions My Son Asks Me For Which I Have No Immediate Answer. QMSA... forget it. No acronyms. Just questions, verbatim, in no particular order. If you have good answers, I'm all ears/eyes.

This week's questions:

• "How come you can't see a duck's penis when ducks do the sex?" (Yes, he says it like that. Apparently it's like doing the tango, or something.)
  
• "Why do adults fight all the time, if we have to work it out at school? And why do they stick tall man up in the air when they're angry in traffic? That guy behind you at the light did it, just now!" ("Tall man" = middle finger)
• "What does cricket poop look like?"
• "If I really want to be friends with someone, even if he picks his nose and a big string of snot came out of it today at lunch, but he keeps being mean to me, but I don't think he can always help it, but it hurts my feelings anyway especially if he maybe did it during line-up time when everyone else was there and he won't stop, what do I do?"
• "How many species have gone extinct since I was born?"
• "Well, why can't I say 'Bloody Hell?' What's the difference between that and 'Darn it?'"
• "How did Fred and George figure out how to work the Marauder's Map?"
• "What if someone tries to kill you?"
• "Can you dislocate your butt?"