Arachnids, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 25, 2018

Watch 1,400 Tarantula Babies Emerge from Their Mother's Egg Sac

… Sorry, we're talking about baby tarantulas, right? We're bringing it up because of a viral video shared earlier this year by the YouTube host known as Deadly Tarantula Girl (real name: Marita Lorbiecke). In the oh-so-creepy, oh-so-enthralling video, Lorbiecke uses scissors and tweezers to open up a big, pillowy...

Sep 19, 2018

1,000-Foot-Long Spider Web Is Just a Summer Orgy, Expert Says

The tranquil beaches of Greece are an ideal destination for a summer fling, especially if you are a hungry, web-flinging spider. Residents of Aitoliko, an island village perched between two bridges in western Greece, recently woke up to see their local beaches overtaken by such amorous arachnid action — and...

Dec 27, 2018

Man Gets Black Widow Spider Bite. Then He Can't Pee.

There's a whole range of reasons you don't want to be bitten by a black widow spider, but you probably wouldn't think that losing the ability to pee is one of them. But that's what may have happened to a man in Canada. After he got a suspected black widow...

Jan 2, 2019

An Australian Man Screamed So Loud at a Spider That the Cops Showed Up

Arachnophobia — that is, the unreasonable fear of spiders — isn't illegal, but it could still bring the police to your door if you scream loud enough. An Australian man learned that the hard way this morning when, according to reports by the BBC, a passerby heard him shouting, Why...

Feb 25, 2019

21 Totally Sweet Spider Superlatives

Super spiders (Image credit: Shutterstock)Spiders are incredibly diverse creatures. They can be the size of the period at the end of the sentence… or the size of your face. They can live in deserts, in the tropics, in Siberia and even underwater. They can be docile or deadly, ground-dwelling or...

Feb 28, 2019

Tropical Spiders Cause 'Surprising Amount of Death,' Hunting Opossums, Frogs and More

For small animals in the tropics, spiders and their arthropod cousins are responsible for a surprising amount of death, scientists recently discovered. Researchers captured gruesome photos of the spiders' hunting prowess in the Peruvian Amazon, revealing in a new study that the arachnids regularly dine on frogs, fish, lizards and...

Mar 14, 2019

Little Short for a Stormtrooper? Newfound Spiders Named for 'Star Wars' Villains

White-armored Stormtroopers in the Star Wars movies are practically identical and nearly impossible to tell apart. That uncanny similarity recently inspired a team of scientists who had discovered a new spider genus; the arachnids were so alike each other in size and markings that the researchers named them after the...

Mar 15, 2019

Space Orbiter Spots 'Hairy Blue Spider' on Mars

An image captured by a European Space Agency (ESA) orbiter recently showed what appears to be a very hairy, blue spider extending its legs across the Martian landscape. But in reality, the so-called spider is a sprawling pattern left behind on a ridge by a frenzy of dust devils, when...

Apr 12, 2019

Here's What Happens When You Put Giant Sea Spiders into Boot Camp

The realization that giant sea spiders have Swiss cheese-like holes in their exoskeletons has shed light on a decades-old mystery about how underwater creatures living in the polar oceans and deep abysses got so spookily huge. Researchers found that pores cover the legs of giant sea spiders, and, as these...

May 13, 2019

Spider Spins Web in Man's Ear (Cue the Nightmares)

A man in eastern China recently visited a hospital with complaints of a crawling sensation in his right ear. Upon examination, the doctor found a spider that had really made itself at home. The tiny arachnid had spun a web that covered the patient's entire ear canal. Dr. Zhang Pan...

May 16, 2019

This Crafty Spider Doesn't Have Venom...But It Does Have a 'Slingshot'

Does the idea of a spider using its web to catapult itself at high speeds give you the willies? Then be forewarned: the triangle weaver spider (Hyptiotes cavatus) does just that. Which makes it the only known creature, besides humans, to employ a strategy known as external power amplification, a...

Jun 19, 2019

Huntsman Spider Devours Possum in Viral (and Terrifying) Photos

In Australia — where else? — a large spider recently demonstrated the dominance of arachnids over puny mammals, as it chowed down on an unfortunate pygmy possum. Southern Tasmania resident Justine Latton shared her husband's photos of the gruesome meal on June 14 in the Facebook group Tasmanian Insects and...

Jun 21, 2019

Why These Strange, Reclusive Arachnids Fled Underground in Evolutionary Waves

Once upon a time, Western Australia was covered in forests and those forests were filled with sightless, eyeless, tip-tapping critters called schizomids. But over the course of the last 66 million years, the region grew much hotter and drier as the whole continent shifted north toward the equator. Those forests...

Aug 10, 2019

Skywatching Spider Photobombs Perseid Meteor Shower

How do you spot a shooting star? Well, you don't look for eight legs; that's for sure. But a NASA camera designed to photograph meteors spotted more than it bargained for during the Perseid meteor shower, when a curious spider stopped by. The photograph was taken at Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter...

Aug 15, 2019

Thousands of Tarantulas Are About to Set Off on Their Annual Migration in Colorado

Oklahoma brown tarantulas (Aphonopelma hentzi) will soon be on the move and looking for love. (Image credit: Shutterstock)Southeastern Colorado will soon be experiencing the pitter-patter of little feet — tens of thousands of them — as thousands of male tarantulas begin their annual migration to the prairies to find a...