OP: *is bioethicist*
Cicindela
cicindela
I was in GSA as a kid, went to my gay friend’s prom as her date (I’m not exactly straight but we weren't dating at the time), and was privileged enough to be one of two faculty sponsors for the region’s(!) first GSA when I taught HS in the deep south, ten years later. I’m amazed that the school I taught in was able to…
But the real winners here are the scientists who can, for the rest of their lives, tell friends, relatives and potential romantic partners that they've spent two weeks in Madagascar watching spiders fuck.
He's probably courting a female. Jumping spiders have some pretty awesome-looking courtship behavior.
That's how spiderlings (and some adults of small species) disperse—appropriately called ballooning.
Wolf spiders make really awesome pets though.
It's a wolf spider, but I couldn't tell you which one without full dorsal and ventral shots.
It's a momma and her young. Baby scorpions (scorplings) ride around on their mother's back and are protected by her—in some species for quite a while.
Lady arachnologist here. Thanks for the hat tip. ;)
I want that stuffed scorpion SO BADLY. This is bullshit; arachnology definitely does not pay well enough that I can just drop $50 on stuffed animals. :(
Bedbugs? I'm thinking bedbugs.
I have been that woman—except with spiders. On her behalf, I apologize. We really don't get it sometimes.
I definitely stole my dog, and I'm not at all sorry for not returning him to his rightful owners. In that case, he had been staying nights in a dog house on my porch for months because he wasn't let in his owner's house, had a pretty severe fear of sticks and people wielding them, and when the filthy mutt jumped in my…
This was probably not a pregnant spider, but a momspider already. Wolf spiders (family Lycosidae) carry their young on their backs until the babies are ready to disperse. They actually have specific "hairs" that the babies attach themselves to with silk. They are beneficial predators, and can't really hurt humans, so…
Yeah, I saw that too, if it was pretty recent. Totally fake. It's even on snopes now: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/insect…
As a spider researcher, I promise that it absolutely cannot happen.
As a spider scientist, I guarantee that it will not. In spiders, eggs basically fall out of a slit in their belly, generally onto a bed of silk that is then wrapped up into an egg sac. Parenting strategies diverge from there, but my main point is that spiders have nothing resembling an ovipositor that would allow them…
Hi! I study and work with spiders for a living. They aren't physically capable of laying eggs under skin, so there's really no need to worry.