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Comment by arthurcolle | Hacker News Reader

At least there aren't ever any spider outbreaks. I don't think my spirit could handle it.

I was just in the Brazilian Amazon, and there was a funny moment there re: spiders... I stepped out onto a small floating dock and my weight sank the bottom of the dock below water level. There were probably ~100 spiders of all sizes that immediately emerged around my feet from between the slats as they were forced out from their homes underneath the dock.

Fortunately I don't mind spiders much, but it did look like a scene out of a horror movie.

Thanks for the details. I've now added a new entry to my list of places never to go. I do hope those little guys were able to resettle somewhere less prone to anthropogenic climate change ;)

Places to Avoid, list written + maintained by Arthur Collé:

[] Deep space [added: after seeing Gravity]

[] Mariana Trench [added: after seeing Underwater]

[] Amazon rainforest [NEW, added: 2021-01-20]

My brother told me to climb under an outdoor couch in Texas when I was about 6 and I was immediately covered by hundreds of harvestmen (aka daddy long legs.) I remember being startled and yelling for help but was not permanently scarred or anything. Spiders only creep me out the usual amount.

I love harvestmen. I've seen cave walls in Texas covered in thousands of them, doing pushups in unison. That's just what they do.

Harvestmen are not even spiders. They're nonvenomous arachnids. Completely harmless.

Heh I kinda knew that... maybe that’s why I didn’t gain a fear of spiders :)

On the plus side you have just named the next Stephen King novel: The Harvestmen

> I do hope those little guys were able to resettle somewhere less prone to anthropogenic climate change ;)

Haha! That took me a minute. If that experience was anything to go by, spiders will be around long after humans have left.

I remember Underwater for skipping fast forward after the first five to ten minutes, and it sounded almost comically. Just varying screems to the end. And way too much "teal and orange".

> Deep space [added: after seeing Gravity]

Gravity takes place in near space, and it gets most of the gravity quite wrong.

There are tarantula migrations during mating season in the fall. If you live in the Bay Area, you can see them up at Mount Diablo State Park.

Migrations, like, they are just walking across the ground or something?

Yes, in some locations they are closer to swarming over the ground.

In Texas 100 years ago tarantulas used to be so thick crossing highways that cars had to stop. I haven't seen reports of quite that many in the last few decades. These are always males looking for mates. They are venomous but rarely bite and their venom is no more dangerous to people than a bee sting (i.e. it can be dangerous if you're allergic). They make good pets although wild-caught ones don't live long.

Did you interact with them at all? How was that? My arachnophobic morbid curiosity has reached a new level just now

As kids we would catch them and keep them in jars for a few days, then release them again. We also caught king snakes and fed them blue belly lizards...which may lead you to understand our fear response with wild animals.

They are pretty gentle as far as things go.

    ... we've all heard the factoid that the average person supposedly eats 4 spiders per second. This statistic is misleading; it's based on a study examining on the peak rate of spider consumption in areas where the spider-streams are densest. The global average rate is probably closer to 1 spider per second (obviously higher while asleep than while awake) ...

- https://what-if.xkcd.com/120/

(For those who didn't click, note that What-If #120 is "Excerpts from What If articles written in a world which, thankfully, is not the one we live in")

Nah, we all know it's just a statistical problem, and the real culprit is Spiders Georg https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/spiders-georg

I don't really get this meme.

It's making fun of statistics which use mean (instead of median) to generate sensational-yet-unrealistic headlines.

I feel like I've seen a video of tons of spiders flying overhead somewhere...

I saw that one time high (as in feet above sea level) on Mt. Lassen (N. California). The sky was full of little sparkly web-strands; it was very cool.

They might just be using very high prime numbers.

Then better not visit the "Hafen City" in Hamburg, Germany. Especially not the latest metro station "Elbbrücken" there, and especially not at night, because then they come out to hunt all the other insects which are caught in their nets, which they build over or near any light. Even over the touch screens of the ticket machines. They seem to be E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E! BRRR!

Australia has joined the chat

https://time.com/3882445/raining-spiders-australia/

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