Arachnologists have figured out what makes spiders so terrible

The researchers analyzed newspaper articles over the past decade. These articles were published in

dozens of countries, but despite the fact that they were writtenauthors from different regions, almost half of them contained errors.  And this lie about spiders had a clearly negative connotation. In total, the study examined more than 5,000 articles published from 2010 to 2020 in 81 countries in 40 languages.

“The vast majority of content about spiderstalks about how they scare and hurt people,” says Katherine Scott. In fact, she notes, "spiders almost never bite humans." Arachnologist Scott studies spiders at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Of the approximately 50,000 species of spiders known to science,few are dangerous. In fact, spiders protect humans by eating insects such as mosquitoes that spread disease. Even spiders that can pose a threat, such as the brown recluse and black widow, rarely bite people, Scott says.

But error-filled news bulletins paint spiders inanother light. Some stories of spider bites have been blamed on species that don't even live where the bite occurred. Others have reported that people bitten by spiders showed symptoms that did not correspond to real bites. According to Scott, "many stories of spider bites did not contain any evidence that any spider was involved."

More than four out of every ten articles"represented" the behavior of spiders in a sensational light. The hyped stories often used words like “nasty,” “killer,” “agony,” and “nightmare” to describe the arachnids. Moreover, international and national newspapers used sensational terms more often than regional publications. The stories involving the spider expert were less sensational.

Scott argues that if people knew the truth aboutspiders, they would spend less time blaming them for the bites. Humans may also be less likely to kill spiders with pesticides that are toxic to other species (including humans).

Improving the public image of spiders may evenenhance conservation efforts overall. "Spiders are unique in that they are very good at attracting people's attention," says Lisa Taylor, an arachnologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville who was not involved in the study. “If that attention is combined with real information about how adorable they are...then I think spiders are well-suited to being tiny members of wildlife in general.” 

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