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.
