Do spiders bite more at night in beds?

Some myths live on… This is the case for the famous spider bites that so many people have suffered during, most of the time, hot summer nights. But what is it really? Can you really get bitten by a spider in your bed?

Spiders are still very little known to the general public. Their number, their size, their mode of functioning mean that they remain animals a little apart in the category “fwild ell ». It is certainly from this distance that the incomprehension of their abilities was born.… Particularly on the fact that they do not sting.

Who are the spiders?

Eight-legged animal that appeared on earth more than 305 million years agothe spider is one of the arachnids just like scorpions (yes, yes…) or mites. There are no less than 46,000 species in the world and 1,600 in France !

All spiders are carnivores and therefore great hunters with diverse and varied, sometimes impressive, hunting techniques.

Only one species is herbivorous (Bagheera kiplingi) which clearly shows the evolutionary choice of this gigantic family of carnivores.

In France alone a single spider is considered dangerous, because it is venomousthe Black Widow (Thirteen-dropped thief) who lives in Corsica and around the Mediterranean.

If it can indeed represent a threat to humans, the cases nevertheless remain very anecdotal with regard to the human populations living alongside the species.

A physical inability to bite for spiders

To sting, you need the power… That is to say, you need an organ that can allow you to sting, which spiders are no more equipped with than us.

If spiders are indeed equipped with hooks called “chelicerae”, themselves possibly connected to venom glands, They use them primarily for hunting in order to feed themselves.. We come back to the evolutionary choices mentioned above, because spiders did not evolve in a defensive mode, but instead turned towards food research.

The entire physiology of spiders is adapted for feeding and not for attacking or defending themselves. Now since they have no chance of feeding on us, we are of little interest to them, even if it is difficult for our ego to hear!

Read also – Why do we see more spiders in the fall?

The spider lacks the strength to sting us

If you accidentally gnaw at a spider without realizing it and it decides, even if it is very unlikely, to bite you with its chelicerae, Do you think it will have enough force to pierce your skin?

Here again, there are very few spiders capable of piercing our leather (no sting for them), which further limits the chances of getting an injection. Bite eventually, never sting!

If you wake up in the morning with a pimple, it is not the work of a spider but rather of a mite, a mosquito or a bedbug!

A big difference in perception

When a spider starts to climb our leg or is found, despite herselfon your skull because you crossed its web during a hike, it in no way says ” another one of those clumsy humans who doesn’t pay attention, I’m going to bite this one ».

Indeed, the perception that spiders have of the world around them is not at all the same as ours if only by the difference in scale… We weigh at least 100,000 times heavier than a spider average, which means that the relationship is the same between an average French person and… the Eiffel Tower.

When a spider is jostled by a foot, it might as well be a falling branch. In the same way, when she is sent flying with one arm, it could just as easily be the wind that pushed the foliage towards her. In short, they neither see us nor consider us really for something other than an object in the decor.

Read also – 5 smells hated by spiders to keep them away from the house

Spiders also rid us of wasps and hornets © Edwin Butter

On the other hand, they eat… They eat a lot of mosquitoes and flies for example, so think twice before crushing them or destroying their webs and then buying chemicals or not to get rid of other pesky insects.

Article republished.